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IV 




INTRODUCTION 



TO 



PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY 



BY 



BOEDER P. BOAVNE 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY 
AUTHOR OF "METAPHYSICS" 



I- i 




NEW YORK 
HARPER k BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1887 






Copyright, 1886, by Harper & Brothers. 



All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 



The aim of this work is given in its title. First, it is 
an " introduction " only, and does not go into the details 
or the literature of the subject. The aim is to point out 
the highways of psychology, rather than its myriad by- 
ways. Secondly, it is an " introduction to psychological 
theory ," and aims less at a knowledge of facts than at 
an understanding of principles. Until principles are set- 
tled there is no bar to the most fantastic theories and 
interpretations. 

These principles being illustrated in the most common 
facts of experience, it is not necessary to psychological 
insight to make an anthology of madhouse and hospital 
stories. Such a procedure has about the same relation to 
psychology that the various books of " wonders " or the 
" brilliant experiments " of the popular lecturer have to 
sober physical science. An odor of quackery is percep- 
tible in both cases. 

The plan of the work precludes much attention to physi- 
ological psychology. Whatever the merits of this science 
may be, it presupposes pure psychology. If our aim is to 
give a physiological explanation of psychological facts, 



VI PREFACE. 

we must first know the facts. Or if our aim is the more 
modest one of finding the physical conditions or attend- 
ants of mental facts, again we must know the facts. But 
this knowledge is not possible by the way of physiology, 
and in any case the mental facts remain what they al- 
ways were. Their likenesses and differences and essential 
nature would not be changed if physiology were supreme. 
Even the " new psychology " would not give us new men- 
tal facts, but only a new interpretation of the old facts. 
The Zeitgeist itself begins at last to see this ; and the 
naive onslaughts on the " old psychology " are happily 
growing fewer. Psychological literature shows very 
marked progress in this respect within the last twenty 
years. Physiology remains a most estimable science, but 
the physiological reconstruction of psychology has been 
postponed. The study of the physical conditions of our 
mental life has a pathological and practical importance ; 
but it does not promise any valuable psychological results, 
at least for those who can distinguish between the physi- 
cal conditions and the mental facts which they condition. 

The limitation of plan involves many omissions ; and 
in these there will seem to be a measure of arbitrariness. 
Hence many will not find here what they want, and proba- 
bly still more will find what they do not want. There 
seems to be no way of adjusting so grave a difficulty 
except by maintaining, on the one hand, freedom to pub- 
lish, and, on the other, freedom not to read. 

Borden P. Bowne. 

Boston, September, 1886. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Definition of Psychology, p. 1. — Possible Directions of Psychological 
Study, p. 1. — Psychology mainly an Introspective Science, p. 2. — 
Objections to the Introspective Method, p. 3. — Reasons for the slow 
Growth of Psychology, p. 4. 



PART I. 

THE FACTORS OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 



Chapter I. 

THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE ... 11 

Pteality of Self the Condition of the Mental Life, p. 11. — Objections 
considered, p. 11. — Impossibility of Eational Consciousness apart 
from an Abiding Self, p. 12. — A Word on Method, p. 14. — Defini- 
tion of Materialism, p. 15. — Materialism unclear in its Meaning, 
p. 16. —Ambiguity of the Facts of Mental Dependence, p. 18.— 
Difficulties of Materialism, p. 19. — Hylozoistic Materialism, p. 21. 
— Relation of Hylozoism to Physics, p. 22. — Untenability of Hylo- 
zoistic Materialism, p. 25. — Bearing of Materialism on Life and 
Action, p. 30. — Bearing of Materialism on Knowledge, p. 31. — 
Scepticism involved in Materialism, p. 34. — Man a Dual Being, » 
p. 36. —Value of this View, p. 36. 



Vili CONTENTS. 



Chapter II. 

PAGE 

SENSATION 39 

Physical Conditions of Sensation, p. 40. — Sensation not explained by 
its Physical Conditions, p. 40. — Forms of Nervous Stimulus, p. 41. 

— Attempts to explain Differences of Sensation, p. 43. — Our Igno- 
rance of Nervous Action no Psychological Loss, p. 48. — Relation of 
Sensation to Stimulus, p. 49. — Weber's Facts and Fechner's Theory, 
p. 50. — Difficulties of Fechner's Law, p. 52. — Interpretations of 
Fechner's Law, p. 53. — Differences in Simple Sensations, p. 56. — 
Double Aspect of Sensations, p. 58. — Organic Sensations, p. 59. — 
Source of the Sensations arising from Motion, p. 59. — Arguments 
for Sub-conscious Sensations, p. 62. — Criticism of the Same, p. 65. 

— Simplicity of Sensations, p. 69. — Unclearness of the Doctrine, 
p. 70. 



Chapter III. 

THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. ... 73 

Facts of Reproduction, p. 73. — Two Classes of Theories, p. 75. — Her- 
bart's Theory, p. 76. — Ambiguity and Difficulties of Herbart's 
Theory, p. 77. — Uncertainty of the English Associationalists, p. 82. 
— Physiological Theories of Reproduction, p. 83. — Shortcomings of 
all Cerebral Theories, p. 84. — Failure of every Theory to give a true 
Insight, p. 86. — Statement of Results, p. 87. — Laws of Association, 
p. 90. — The Laws criticised, p. 90. — Sub-conscious Association, 
p. 96. 



Appendix to Chapter III. 

CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION ... 99 

Forms and Implications of the Theory, p. 99. — Complexity of the Cell 
Theory, p. 101. Difficulty of keeping Impressions separated, 
p. 104. — Obscurity of the Theory on Important Points, p. 105. — 
No Account given of Actual Association, p. 107. — Physiological 
Difficulties, p. 109. —Habit Form of the Cerebral Theory, p. 111. — 
Difficulties of this View, p. 112. — Sense in which the Brain is the 
Organ of Memory, p. 113. 



CONTENTS. IX 



Chapter IV. 

PAGE 

THE THOUGHT FACTOR 115 

The Two Schools of Psychology, p. 115. — Psychological and Philo- 
sophical Aspect of their Differences, p. 116. — Primal Shortcoming 
of Sensationalism, p. 118. — Judgments cannot arise through Asso- 
ciation alone, p. 119. — Two Distinct Processes in the Mental Life, 
p. 121. — Ambiguity in the Facts of Mental Development overlooked 
by Sensationalists, p. 123. — The Categories, p. 126. — Time, p. 127. 

— Time not a Quality of Mental States, nor an Abstraction from 
them, p. 128. — The Sequence of Ideas not the Idea of Sequence, 
p. 128. — Memory not the Source of the Idea, p. 129. — The Idea of 
Time not dependent on the Idea of Causation, p. 131. — Fundamen- 
tally, Time is a Law of Mental Synthesis, p. 131. — Space, p. 133. 

— Different Views of Space, p. 133. — Associational View, p. 134. 

— Ambiguity and Untenability of this View, p. 135. — Superficiality 
of tbe Common View, p. 113. — The Idea of Space not explained by 
the Extension of the Nerves or by the Extension of the Soul, p. 141. 

— The Source of the Idea must be sought for in the Nature of the 
Mind, p. 148. — Space essentially a Law of Mental Synthesis, p. 149. 

— The Unity and Infinity of Space a Consequence of this Law, p. 149. 

— Relation of Sense Experience to the Idea, p. 151. — iV-dimen- 
sional Space, p. 151. — Number, p. 153. — Number purely a Mental 
Product, p. 153. — Failure of the Attempts to deduce it from Sense 
Experience, p. 154. — Number as the Science of Pure Time, p. 156. — 
Substance, p. 158. — This Idea not derived from the Senses, p. 158. — 
Sensationalist Doctrine of Substance, p. 160. — Criticism of the Same, 
p. 160. — Cause, p. 165. — Criticism of the Sensational Theory, 
p. 167. — Claim that the Idea of Causation arises only from our 
Volitional Activity, p. 171. — The Truth in this Claim, p. 172. 



Appendix to Chapter IV 175 

Attempt to found Sensationalism on the Experience of the Race, p. 175. 
— Mutual Opposition of Sensationalism and Materialism, p. 175. — 
Difficulty of connecting the Experience of the Individual with that 
of the Race, p. 178. — Heredity the Problem, not its Solution, 
p. 178. — Ambiguity of the Facts, p. 178. — Inability of Heredity to 
create New Ideas, p. 180. — Mechanical Nature of the Doctrine, 
p. 180. 



X CONTENTS. 

Chapter V. 

PAGE 

THE FEELINGS 182 

Feeling undefinable, p. 182. — Feeling cannot be deduced, p. 183. — 
Feeling cannot be understood through its Conditions, p. 186. — 
Physical Feelings, p. 188. — Obscurity of the Nervous Processes 
which condition them, p. 189. — No satisfactory Classification of 
the Feelings which have only a Mental Source, p. 191. — Mental 
Feelings as Functional, p. 191. — Emptiness of this Conception when 
made Universal, p. 193. — The Ego Feelings, p. 193. — Dependence 
of Feeling on its Relation to Self-consciousness, p. 194. — The Social 
Feelings, p. 195. — Attempts to deduce them from Selfish Feeling, 
p. 195. — Relation of the Ego Feelings to Social Relations, p. 197. 

— ^Esthetic Feeling, p. 198. — ^Esthetic Judgments founded on 
^Esthetic Feeling, p. 198. — Various Forms of ^Esthetic Feeling, 
p. 199. — Significance of Association for ^Esthetics, p. 200. — 
Reasons for the Diversity of ^Esthetic Judgments, p. 201. — Why 
do Objects please us aesthetically ? p. 201. — Insufficiency of Physio- 
logical Explanations, p. 202. — Failure of Attempts to base ^Esthetics 
on a Single Principle, p. 203. — Uncertainty of the Boundaries of 
the ^Esthetic Realm, p. 204. — The Moral Feelings, p. 205. — Two 
Directions of Ethical Study, p. 206. — The basal Ethical Fact, 
p. 206. — Double Standard of Ethical Judgment, p. 207. — Deduc- 
tions and Reductions of the Moral Sentiments, p. 209. — Religious 
Feeling, p. 210. — Theories of the same, p. 211. — The Desires, 
p. 214. — The Object of Desire, p. 214. — Pleasures not Commen- 
surable, p. 215. — Direction and Control of Feeling, p. 216. — 
Transition to Willing, p. 217. 

Chapter VI. 

WILL AND ACTION 219 

Not all Activity is Volitional, p. 220. — Constitutional Activity, p. 220. 

— Volition indefinable, p. 221. — Volition distinguished from its 
Psychological Attendants, p. 221. — Volition implies Consciousness, 
p. 222. — In Spontaneous Thought Volition regarded as Free, p. 222. 

— What this Freedom means, p. 223. — Opposing Conceptions, 
]). 223. — Determinism not founded on Consciousness, p. 225. — 
Bearing of the same on Action and Knowledge, p. 226. — Reasons 
for Determinism, p. 228. — The Problem speculatively insoluble, 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

p. 230. — Various Misunderstandings, p. 231. — Freedom implied as 
a Condition of Rational and Social Life, p. 232. — Limitation of 
Freedom, p. 233. 

Chapter VII. 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . . 235 

Definitions of Consciousness tautologous, p. 235. — Traditional Con- 
fusion, p. 235. — Consciousness not a Faculty, p. 237. — Antithesis 
of Subject and Object the Universal Form of Consciousness, p. 238. — 
Objections by Sensationalism, p. 238. — Varying Degrees of Con- 
sciousness, p. 239. — Consciousness dependent on Thought as well as 
on the Sensibility, p. 241. — Misunderstanding of the Antithesis of 
Subject and Object, p. 242. — The two Factors of Self-consciousness, 
p. 244. — The Conception of Self not an Experience of Self, p. 245. — 
Self-experience admits of no Deduction, p. 246. — Development of 
Self-experience into Self-knowledge, p. 218. 



PART II. 

THE FACTORS IN COMBINATION. 



Chapter I. 

PERCEPTION ........ 253 

Perception a Complex Process, p. 253. — Perception a Reaction of the 
Mind against External Action, p. 254. — This External Action no 
Copy of the Object, p. 255. — This Fact covered up with Figures of 
Speech, p. 256. — Implications of Valid Perception, p. 258. — Possi- 
bility of Error, p. 259. — The Perception of Things and that of Space 
Relations arise together, p. 260. — Difficulty of determining the 
Localizing Power of the Senses when taken separately, p. 261. — 
Complete Perception dependent on Classification, p. 262. — Distinc- 
tion between the Appearance and the Thing, p. 263. — Origin of 
the Acquired Perceptions, p. 263. — Source of Sense Illusions, p. 264. 
Association in Perception, p. 265. — Use made by Berkeley of this 
Principle, p. 266. — Dependence of Perception on Reproduction, 
p. 268. 



Xll CONTENTS. 



Chapter II. 

PAGE 

THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION .... 269 

No consistent Terminology, p. 271. — Differences of Memory, Fantasy, 
and Imagination, p. 271. — Memory follows the Order of Mental 
Development, p. 272. — Laws of Menioiy, p. 273. — The Possibility 
of reproduction depends on the Nature of the Original Experience, 
p. 274. — Differences in Memory, p. 275. — The Fantasy, p. 276. — 
Significance of the Imagination for the Rational Life, p. 277. — Con- 
trol of Reproduction, p. 278. 



Chapter III. 

THE THOUGHT PROCESS ..... 280 

Two Stages of Thought, p. 280. — Relation of the Judgment to Knowl- 
edge, p. 281. — Relation of the Universal to the Judgment, p. 281. — 
Conditions of the Universal, p. 282. — Objections from the Associa- 
tionalists, p. 282. — Thought and Language, p. 283. — Abstraction, 
p. 281. — Advantage and Disadvantage of Language, p. 285. — Gene- 
sis of Judgments, p. 285. — The Judgment in Formal Logic, p. 287. — 
Artificial Nature of the Logical Doctrine, p. 288. — Truth and Error, 
p. 290. — Nature of Inference, p. 292. — The Doctrine of Inference in 
Formal Logic artificial and arbitrary, p. 293. — Concerning Intui- 
tions, p. 294. — Two Questions to be distinguished, p. 294. — Mathe- 
matics a Stumbling-block to Empiricism, p. 294. — Belief, p. 296. — 
Most Beliefs represent, not reasoned Truths, but practical Assump- 
tions, p. 297. 

Chapter IY. 

INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY . . . 298 

Problem defined, p. 298. — All Interaction mysterious, p. 298. — Seat 
of the Soul, p. 299. — Meaning of the Question, p. 299. — As com- 
monly understood the Question both idle and empty, p. 300. — Use 
of the Body by the Soul, p. 301. — Movements arising apart from 
Volition, p. 301. — Significance of the Mind for Physical Develop- 
ment, p. 304. — Two Classes of Physical Habits, p. 305. — The Soul 
as the Ground of Physical Structure, p. 306. — Cerebral Localization 
of Mental Functions, p. 307. — Nervous Action in Mental Work, 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

PAGE 



p. 308. — Thought not a Transformation of Nervous Energy, p. 309. 
— Significance of the Body for the Mental Life, p. 311. — Can the 
Mental Life go on apart from the Body ? p. 315. — Question admits 
of no Speculative Solution, p. 316. 



Chapter V. 

SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA . . 319 

Cause of Sleep not fully understood, p. 319. — Depth of Sleep, p. 320. — 
Fantastic Nature of Dreams, p. 320. — Origin of Dreams in Actual 
Sensations, p. 321. — Material of Dreams drawn from waking Expe- 
rience, p. 322. — No single Explanation of Dreams possible, p. 322. — 
Is the Mind ever Inactive ? p. 323. — The Hypnotic State, p. 325. 
— Insanity, p. 326. — Its Psychological Features, p. 326. — Grounds 
of Insanity, p. 327. — Extraordinary Mental Powers, p. 328. 



PSYCHOLOGY 



INTRODUCTION. 

Psychology deals with mental facts and processes. It 
aims to describe and classify those facts and processes, to 
discover and state their laws, and to form some theory 
concerning their origin and cause. Corresponding to this 
complex aim, psychology, like all other sciences, may be 
descriptive and theoretical. We may content ourselves with 
simply describing and classifying the facts and processes. 
The result is empirical psychology. From this as a starting- 
point we may go on to theorize concerning the origin and 
causes of the facts and processes discovered. The result is 
theoretical, or philosophical, psychology. But in psychol- 
ogy, as in most other sciences, these two factors, though 
logically successive, are practically contemporaneous. No 
science completes its collection of facts before it begins 
to theorize ; but the study of fact and the formation of 
theory go together. This is especially true in psychology, 
where the statement of the facts themselves often involves 
a theory. 

Psychological study may take several directions : — 
1. We may study the facts and laws of mind in general, 
without reference to individual peculiarities or to concrete 
application. In this case the aim is to discover the essen- 
tial facts and factors of the mental life. Bv observation we 

1 



2 PSYCHOLOGY. 

learn the facts and processes ; by analysis we seek to decom- 
pose them into their ultimate elements ; and, finally, we 
seek to exhibit the actual mental life as a synthesis of these 
elements. The product of such study is pure or abstract 
psychology. 

2. The mental life is not perfect from the start, but is 
subject to a law of growth. We may study it, then, from 
the genetic side, and trace the order of its unfolding. Such 
study would have especial significance for the theory of 
education. Some speculators have thought it possible by 
this method, not merely to discover the order of temporal 
development, but also to deduce the later stages as neces- 
sary results of the earlier ones. We shall find reasons for 
doubting this view. 

3. The mental life is physically conditioned ; and, instead 
of studying mental facts by themselves, we may study them 
in relation to the organism. This gives rise to a border 
science, physiological psychology. This does not study 
physiology in general, but physiology in its relation to men- 
tal facts. Nor does it study psychology in general, but 
psychology as conditioned by the organism. 

Pure psychology is plainly the presupposition of all other 
forms of psychological study ; as pure logic or pure me- 
chanics is the presupposition of applied logic or applied 
mechanics. Our work will be mainly in pure psychology, 
partly descriptive, partly theoretical, and not without some 
reference to physiology. 

The facts of the objective sciences are discovered through 
the senses. The facts of psychology arc chiefly revealed 
only in consciousness. Instead of looking without to find 
them, we look within. Our method, therefore, must be 
mainly introspective. Mind can be studied to some extent 
in history, in institutions, in literature, and especially in lan- 
guage. In these we see the mind manifesting its nature, 
and uttering its spontaneous and unsophisticated convic- 



INTRODUCTION. 6 

tions. Language abounds in psychological theories and 
classifications, which serve as the starting-point even of 
scientific psychology. Thought, feeling, and volition ; sen- 
sation, emotion, and understanding; desire, choice, and 
effort ; body, soul, and spirit, — are illustrations. Such 
terms represent classifications, distinctions, and theories 
produced by the spontaneous thinking of mankind. Again, 
the structure of language itself is an incarnation of the laws 
of thought ; so much so, that Aristotle sought to determine 
the essential categories of thinking by an analysis of gram- 
matical forms. The noun, the adjective, and the active 
verb are but the reappearance under the forms of language 
of the thought-forms of substance and attribute, cause and 
effect. In this sense there can be an objective study of 
thought. This does not mean, of course, that mind or 
thought can be presented to the senses ; but only that the 
nature of mind can be studied in its products. 

Nevertheless, all our knowledge of mind derived from its 
objective study must come back to consciousness, either for 
its meaning or for its verification. No language concern- 
ing mental facts is intelligible unless we have had expe- 
rience of the facts for ourselves. No theory of them is 
verified until we have compared it with the facts in our 
own consciousness and have found them to agree. Psy- 
chology, then, is finally based on introspection. It is a 
subjective rather than an objective science. 

This fact has been made the ground for much objection. 
Some have denied the possibility of inspecting consciousness 
at all ; others have denied the trustworthiness of conscious- 
ness. According to the latter, consciousness cannot even 
tell us whether we are cold or hot. The former claim has 
the slight psychological foundation that many mental states, 
pre-eminently emotions, cannot be directly inspected with- 
out changing their character to some extent ; and therefore 
they have to be indirectly studied in memory. The latter 



4 PSYCHOLOGY. 

claim has the slight historical justification that careless 
writers have often extended consciousness beyond its 
proper limits ; so that, instead of distinguishing between 
the facts of consciousness and their interpretation, they 
have made consciousness cover both. The proper facts of 
consciousness admit of no scepticism. The one who feels 
cold is cold ; but it may be that this feeling, instead of its 
ordinary antecedent, has an abnormal state of the nervous 
system as its cause. We trust the consciousness even of 
the insane ; doubt concerns only its interpretation. Re- 
membering these limitations, any doubt of the trustworthi- 
ness of consciousness must seem palpably and flagrantly 
absurd. 

Mental facts are nearest of all, and yet psychology 
develops slowly. The objective sciences are of an earlier 
birth and a more rapid growth. This is due to several 
facts : — 

1. The mind is objective in its procedure, and thinks of 
itself last. We tend to lose ourselves in our objects ; and 
the processes of knowing are so immediate, that it never 
occurs to us that there is a process. This fact has the 
highest significance for mental health and development. 
The mind is taken out of itself and introduced to the great 
world of things, the knowledge of which is to be its chief 
occupation and the great source of its growth. The im- 
plicit trust of the mind in knowledge is shaken only as 
it stumbles upon contradictions and absurdities, and is 
forced thereby, to analyze its processes and revise its 
;i ^sumptions. 

2. The phenomena are complicated, and often admit of 
no description. Shades of feeling and emotion may be 
felt, but not described. Language, too, is formed under 
the influence of external objects, and hence is vague, and 
often misleading, in its application to mental states. More- 
over, the mind, because of its objective tendency, becomes 



INTRODUCTION. 6 

disinclined to look within. Our mental states do not stand 
out in consciousness with the sharpness of objects in space. 
Hence the paradox, that there is nothing so hard to study 
as ourselves. 

3. The facts admit of no exact measurement. Physical 
science depends especially upon measurement, either of 
size, duration, weight, or intensity. Its facts and laws first 
become fruitful when they become numerical. The fact of 
gravitation was known long before Newton, and was of no 
significance. It was the discovery of its numerical law 
which first gave it meaning. But thoughts and feelings 
have no size; and their intensity admits of no exact 
numerical determination. 

4. Psychology admits of almost no experiment. In phys- 
iological psychology a little experiment is possible ; but in 
pure psychology no significant experiments can be made. 
It is, then, neither a mathematical, nor a deductive, nor an 
experimental science. We can only aim to describe and 
classify the facts, and to form some conception of their 
cause. On these accounts many have been pleased to deny 
that psychology is a science at all. They should rather say 
that it is not a certain kind of science. A systematic ex- 
position of a certain set of facts, and a theorizing on them 
in accordance with their nature, constitute the science of 
that set of facts. It is only the mentally one-eyed who 
insist that all facts shall be treated by the same method, 
regardless of differences of nature. 

No one has immediate knowledge of any mental life but 
his own. The mental life of all others is absolutely hidden 
from our senses. Their thoughts and feelings are open to 
no direct inspection. All we can see in connection with 
others is sundry changes and movements of the organism ; 
and all we know of their inner life is reached by analogical 
inference, whereby we assimilate it to our own. Nor is it 
easy to find physical marks which certainly denote intelli- 



6 PSYCHOLOGY. 

gence. In the case of man, they consist chiefly in the 
voluntary movements and in language. For the animals, 
we have only the voluntary movements. In both cases, 
the facts of reflex action often make it doubtful whether 
what we call voluntary movements are really such ; 
and in both cases, also, their interpretation must be 
learned from within. It is plain, then, that the starting- 
point of psychology must be the analysis of the individual 
consciousness. Oversight of this patent fact has led to 
the fancy that psychology ought to begin by studying the 
mental phenomena of the lower animals. The inverted 
nature of the procedure is apparent; and the result is 
anthropomorphism in biology. We first assimilate the 
animal mind to the human mind ; and then we are quite 
ready to comprehend the latter as the outcome of the 
former. 

But, on the other hand, no complete knowledge of the 
human mind can be gained by a study of the individual 
consciousness alone. This consciousness itself is evoked 
only under social conditions ; and the individual is never a 
complete or perfect specimen of the race. To escape the 
narrowness and one-sidedness of individualism we need to 
go out into the open field of the world, — into life, and his- 
tory, and literature. Only thus can we eliminate individual 
variations from the type, and get some conception of the 
human mind in general, as distinct from its imperfect 
specimens. 

In beginning our study several roads open before us. 
We might recite the various schemes of psychological 
classification, and select some one as a guide for our fur- 
ther study. Or we might observe that consciousness is a 
condition of all mental operations, and begin with a general 
discussion of the nature and conditions of consciousness. 
We shall do better, however, to postpone these questions 
and follow another order. We begin with a discussion of 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

the subject of the mental life ; then we pass to the impres- 
sions which that subject receives from without, and with 
which the mental life begins ; and, finally, we consider the 
complex action and reaction upon those impressions in 
which the developed mental life consists. And first of all, 
we discuss the subject and the factors of the mental life, 
leaving their combination for later study. 



PART I. 

THE FACTORS OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

THE FACTORS OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 

In all mental experience the self appears as the subject 
of the mental state ; and the state is referred to the self as 
its subject. There is no such thing in experience as pure 
feeling, or knowing, or willing, without a subject that feels, 
or knows, or wills. Hence we may say that the simplest 
mental fact is at least double, involving a mental state and 
a subject of which it is a state. Thoughts and feelings 
apart from something that thinks and feels are unreal 
abstractions, like motion apart from something that moves. 
What is this something!: ? 

In spontaneous thought and consciousness the mental 
subject is given as active and abiding ; and the race has 
constructed various names for it, as mind, soul, spirit, and 
their equivalents, to indicate its reality. The whole struc- 
ture of thought and language also implies it. This con- 
ception of the mental subject we believe to be correct. It 
is disputed, however, on two general grounds : — 

1. All mental states do not involve a reference to self as 
their subject. 

2. The self, or mental subject, is only a compound pro- 
duct of mental states, and hence is subsequent to its com- 
ponents. 

The first objection properly refers to the philosophy of 
self-consciousness. It does not deny that the mental acts 



12 PSYCHOLOGY. 

and states are really acts and states of a substantial mind. 
It only questions whether they always contain a conscious 
reference to self, or involve self-consciousness. We post- 
pone its consideration, therefore, to a later chapter. 

The second claim, so far as it differs from the first, 
denies the existence of any substantial mind, and regards 
the mind only as a collective term for the sum of mental 
facts. As a rule, these mental facts are viewed as sensa- 
tions, either simple or compounded. Thoughts and feelings 
exist ; but there is properly nothing that thinks and feels. 

To this claim the obvious objection is, that we know 
nothing of mental states, sensational or otherwise, except 
as affections of some mental subject which has them. 
Moreover, we never can know of them apart from such 
connection. Not in the case of others ; for mental facts 
can never be seen from the outside. Not in our own case ; 
for then they would be known as ours. There is strictly 
nothing in experience to suggest that mental states can 
exist by themselves like things ; on the contrary, expe- 
rience declares that there must always be something which 
has them. The opposite view is not based upon experience, 
but is purely a deduction from a speculative theory. In 
addition, thought breaks down in the attempt to construe 
it. Mental states are first broken from the only con- 
nection in which they have any meaning; and then are 
mistaken for the ground of their own condition. 

Again, allowing that they may exist apart from a sub- 
ject, there is no way of accounting for the unity of the 
mental life. Let a, b, c, d, e, etc. be a set of sensations 
without any common subject, M; there is no way of unit- 
ing them in a common consciousness. If coexistent, they 
cannot be known as such ; for no one knows anything of 
the others, each being only a particular sensation. For 
the same reason, they cannot be known as sequent. If 
they were the states of a common subject, M, they might 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 13 

be grasped in a common consciousness and compared as 
coexistent or sequent, like or unlike ; but otherwise they 
remain external to one another and without any possibility 
of progress. 

A concrete illustration may make this clearer. Let, 
then, a, b, c, and d be respectively a sensation of color, of 
odor, of taste, and of sound. Plainly no consciousness can 
be built out of these elements. The color knows nothing 
of the odor; the taste knows nothing of the sound. Each 
is a particular and isolated unit ; and must remain so until 
some common subject, M, is given, in the unity of whose 
consciousness these elements may be united. For as long 
as a, b, c, etc. are all, there is no common consciousness, 
and hence no rational consciousness at all. We conclude, 
then, that the mental life, both in its elements and in its 
combinations, must have a subject. It is not only unintel- 
ligible, it is impossible, without it. 

Various devices exist for evading this conclusion. The 
more uncritical use the language of spontaneous thought 
without a suspicion of the inconsistency. The less un- 
critical call their data mental states, states of conscious- 
ness, etc. ; and, by an easy transformation, states of 
consciousness become a consciousness of states. Affections 
of consciousness also are largely spoken of, and conscious- 
ness itself is proposed as a substitute for the soul. Thus 
consciousness is hypostasized into something above its 
alleged elements, and plays essentially the part of an active 
and rational subject. How there can be states which are 
states of nothing, and how consciousness, which is itself a 
mental state, can also have states, are questions passed 
over in profound silence. 

It is instructive to note, in the writings of those who 
reduce the self to states of consciousness, how the abiding 
element maintains itself under some figure of speech. Thus 
Hume, in the chapter on personal identity, while reducing 



14 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the mind, or self, to a set of dissolving views, also speaks 
of the mind as the " theatre " in which all this takes place. 
The reader kindly consents to play the " spectator " ; and 
thus hy means of two figures of speech a philosophical 
doctrine is firmly established. A more common device is 
to speak of the mind as a " series " ; and as we posit the 
series as self-identical in our thought, there is plainly a 
constant element, — the series itself. Or we are told of 
" the property of consciousness to know itself as the same 
in all the changes of its states." Here consciousness itself 
appears as an abiding subject, which distinguishes itself 
from its states and knows itself as the same. From such a 
game of hide and seek, progress unspeakable cannot fail 
to result. 

The reasons for this procedure are various. There is 
often a profound ignorance of the nature of mental facts. 
More frequently there is a preconceived theory of what 
mental facts must be ; and of course the facts must be 
made to fit the theory. This is often the case when psy- 
chology is approached from the physiological side. The 
facts are distorted and falsified from the start, in order to 
adjust them to a predestined explanation. That such a 
method must lead to error, or nonsense, or both, is self- 
evident. 

This inverted procedure has been so common in psy- 
chology, and has wrought so much mischief withal, that a 
word or two of commonplace upon method in general may 
be allowed. First, we are never permitted to make our 
facts, but only to construe them. Yet in the face of this 
simplest rule of method, a large part of psychological study 
lias been directed, not to explaining facts, but to explaining 
them away. Second, facts must always be taken as they are 
given, unless some reason be found in the facts themselves 
for modifying our conception; and in that case, also, the 
facts as given must furnish the starting-point. In the 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 15 

objective sciences this is well understood nowadays ; but 
in psychology it still needs to be emphasized. The science 
has been overrun and devastated by theorists, who had 
already decided what the facts must be ; and by baptizing 
their arbitrary dogmatism science, they have won not a 
little glory. They have their reward. 

To apply these considerations to the matter in hand. It 
is plain, that, if the mental subject be given as real and 
abiding, and as an integral element of consciousness, an 
element without which a rational consciousness is demon- 
strably impossible, then that subject is to be admitted as a 
fact until some other facts are discovered which make such 
admission impossible. The fact may be called metaphysi- 
cal, or supersensible, or metempirical, or whatever else 
we may think disagreeable ; nevertheless, we are bound in 
good faith to recognize it as a fact. The mind as it is must 
be the foundation of psychology, not the mind as we think 
it ought to be, nor even the mind as the Zeitgeist has 
decided it must be. 

We have, then, a logical right to assume the reality of 
the mind, and to proceed to study its phenomena upon this 
assumption, with the proviso, of course, that, if any facts 
are found which shall conflict with this assumption, we 
shall modify it accordingly. However, the reality of the 
mental subject is so stoutly disputed by materialism on the 
basis of unquestionable facts, that we shall perhaps do 
better to consider this claim somewhat at length before 
going further. 

By materialism is meant the doctrine that the mental 
subject is nothing substantial, and that mental facts are 
produced by the physical organism. This view rests upon 
the fact that the mental life is plainly conditioned by the 
organism, and that we know nothing of mind apart from a 
body. The physical and the mental life appear together, 
advance together, fail together, and disappear together. 



16 PSYCHOLOGY. 

An exclusive acquaintance with such facts, unbalanced by 
an exact knowledge of mental facts, leads very naturally to 
the conclusion that the mental life is only a function of the 
organism. The organism, in turn, is only a special mate- 
rial aggregate. In ancient materialism the soul was re- 
garded as real, but material; in modern times, materialism 
has come to mean the denial of a substantial soul, and the 
reference of all mental activities to the physical organism. 

At first sight this doctrine appears perfectly clear, but in 
fact it is rather confused. A common way of conceiving it 
is based upon the conception of organs and their func- 
tions. The function of the stomach is to digest ; that of the 
glands is to secrete ; and that of the brain is to feel, think, 
and will. For a long time a favorite formula was that the 
brain secretes thought, as the liver secretes bile. Of course 
the brain has other than mental functions ; but among its 
various functions are those of thinking, feeling, and 
willing. 

Such attempts to express the doctrine only destroy its 
tenability. They overlook the fact that the functions and 
products of all other organs are physical and material. 
Thus the secretory organs either eliminate their products 
from the blood, or make them out of matter taken from the 
blood. If now we are to regard thought as a secretion, it 
would follow that thoughts either exist in the blood or are 
made out of blood. In either case they might be collected 
and looked at, just as we collect and look at bile. But 
thought itself is immaterial. If we admit that its cause is 
material, we have still to affirm that thought itself is noth- 
ing material. 

Again, it is said, with somewhat less of definiteness, that 
the brain produces thought ; but the sense of this produc- 
tion is left unclear. Now all production in the physical 
realm consists, not in making something else, but in pro- 
ducing new movements and groupings of matter. The 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 17 

change of motion and the new grouping are the effect. If 
now the production of thought is to be assimilated to physi- 
cal production, we should have to say that a certain 
material grouping is a thought. As n atoms grouped and 
moving in a certain way do not produce, but are, a chemical 
molecule, so m atoms grouped and moving in a peculiar 
way do not produce, but are, a thought. As in the preced- 
ing case, such thoughts might conceivably be collected and 
looked at ; and essentially the same absurdity reappears. 

Once more, thought has been called a movement of mat- 
ter ; and, as motion is immaterial, this view seems less 
gross than those preceding. But motion is always the 
motion of something from one point to another, or along a 
certain path, with a certain velocity. Hence this view must 
read : The motion of M from A to B with velocity V is a 
thought, say a conception in physics or in political economy. 
But the more clearly we conceive the subject the more im- 
possible we find it to connect it with the predicate. As well 

might we call the following line, , an aspiration, 

or a profound reflection, or a flash of insight. 

These attempts to illustrate the doctrine only serve to 
make more clear the difference between physical and men- 
tal facts. All that is left is the claim that in some obscure 
way the mental life is the outcome of the physical organ- 
ism. This doctrine we propose to examine. Throughout 
the argument matter will be conceived as atomically dis- 
crete, as that is the only conception admitted in physical 
science. 

Materialism rejects the reality of the mental subject as 
apparently given in consciousness and as assumed by spon- 
taneous thought, because the mental life is found to be pro- 
foundly dependent upon the organism, and more especially 
upon the brain and nervous system. But such dependence 
is ambiguous, and may be explained by either of two 
hypotheses : — 

2 



18 PSYCHOLOGY. 

1. We may suppose that the organism produces the men- 
tal facts. This would explain the observed dependence. 

2. 'We may suppose that the mind is distinct from the 
organism, but is conditioned in its activities by the organ- 
ism. This also would explain the observed dependence. 

The decision between these views can be reached only by 
studying all the facts of the mental life. If we find that 
one better explains and expresses the facts than the other, 
the decision must be in favor of that one. Bat before pro- 
ceeding, it may be well to emphasize the ambiguity of the 
facts in question. For the most decided spiritualist, the 
body is the means for educing and inciting the mental life, 
and for putting the mind in connection with the outer 
world. Hence the mental state must be affected by the 
physical. If the nerves be disordered, they can only lead 
to disturbed mental action. An immature organism would 
not furnish the mind with the stimulus for a mature mental 
life. Again, as we know of other minds only through the 
organism, it follows that the disappearance of the latter 
would end all manifestation of the former. 

It is the illogical imagination which finds in the facts of 
mental dependence upon the organism a sure proof of 
materialism. Common facts illustrative of the dependence 
of the mind upon the body, such as the influence of stimu- 
lants, the need of sleep, the depressing effect of familiar 
diseases, etc., do not affect us. But uncommon facts, as 
some occult discovery in brain physiology, or the influence 
of some new drug, these have profound significance. Yet, 
logically, the influence of a cup of coffee has as much sig- 
nificance as the newest fact of the hospital or laboratory. 
All alike are but specifications of the fact, known and con- 
fessed by all, that the mind is conditioned by the nature and 
state of the body. If these facts were all, the result would 
be a drawn battle. But there are certain capital facts of the 
mental life which make materialism an untenable theory. 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 19 

The first great difficulty which materialism meets is the 
complete unlikeness of physical and mental facts. Body 
has form, position, solidity. Thoughts and feelings have 
none of these. The attributes of one cannot be ascribed 
to the other without absurdity. If we pass below visible 
body to the component elements, we come no nearer to 
thought, so long as we retain only the conceptions of mat- 
ter which appear in physical science. The phenomena of 
matter as conceived by the physicist consist entirely in 
aggregation and movement ; and the forces of matter are 

DO O ' 

without exception moving forces, that is, their effect con- 
sists entirely in modifying the movement, position, and 
aggregation of the elements. But it is a simple matter of 
definition, that the elements, as thus conceived, will never 
explain thought, unless we assume that a given grouping 
is thought, which is absurd. All that our system provides 
for us is aggregation and movement ; and no reflection on 
changes of motion and grouping will ever bring us to a 
point where we shall see that the next step must be a 
thought or feeling, something wholly incommensurable 
with either or both. We can conceive that such a system 
of elements might be so connected with a mental subject 
that their changes should be the ground for a thought or 
feeling arising in that subject ; but otherwise we begin and 
end with the elements variously grouped and moving. A 
false conception of physical causation often misleads us 
here. We fancy that the elements may cause something 
apart from themselves, but in sound science all physical 
effects consist in some change of physical states re- 
sulting in some change of position, aggregation, and 
movement. 

An apparent exception to this view is found in the facts 
of sound, light, etc. In these cases the elements produce 
effects unlike themselves. The sound is unlike the instru- 
ment ; the light is unlike the vibrating ether. 



20 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The exception is only apparent. The vibrating instru- 
ment produces a vibrating atmosphere, which produces a 
vibrating nerve. So long as we remain in the physical 
realm, we have only movement, nor can any one pretend 
that in this realm a vibration mast at last be reached which 
will have for its consequent, not a vibration, but a sound. 
The same applies to light. The exception is based on an 
ambiguity of the terms. The instrument does not produce 
sound in the psychological sense, but only vibration. The 
vibrating ether does not produce light in the visual sense, 
but propagates vibrations. And as long as we remain in 
the physical realm, with only physical conceptions, nothing 
more is possible. 

A second objection to this claim has been based on the 
transformation of energy. This doctrine was supposed to 
teach that all material forces may pass into one another, or 
rather that there is but one force which manifests itself 
under various forms. From this 'it was concluded that 
physical energy may become mental energy, and conversely. 
This was pure mistake. The forces of matter are neither 
correlated nor transformed. Each of these remains as dis- 
tinct and separate as ever. The doctrine applies only to 
the energies of matter, and these are nothing independent 
of the elements, but only their power of doing work, that 
is, their power to produce changes in material movements 
and aggregates. In whatever form they appear, they have 
this common quality, that they are expressed in some form 
of movement or aggregation. 

So long as we employ only those conceptions of matter 
and force which suffice for physical science, it is strictly 
impossible to bring thought within the chain of physical 
cause and effect. It rather remains outside of it and in- 
commensurable with it. So much may be received as uni- 
versally allowed. Matter as the movable explains only 
motion and aggregation. But may it not be that we have 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 21 

thought too meanly of matter ? If we allow that the phys- 
ical properties of the elements will not explain the mental 
life, why need we go outside of the elements for a special 
ground ? Why not rather posit in the elements, along with 
the physical properties, another set of mental properties, 
different indeed from the others, yet belonging to the same 
subject ? In certain relations matter manifests gravity ; 
in certain others, affinity; in still others, magnetism; and 
finally, in others it manifests vital and mental properties. 

Traces of this view are found throughout speculation. 
It first appears in the hylozoism of the Greeks, and may 
be called hylozoistic materialism. Modern materialists 
generally resort to it, and call for " new definitions of 
matter." There are many differences of detail among 
those who hold it, but all agree in assuming some mystic 
principle in matter which is the ground of its vital and 
mental manifestations. Some regard mentality as co- 
existent with all materiality, and propose to endow every 
atom with a kind of soul life, and to found even attraction 
on a kind of sentieucy. Others allow the mystic attribute 
to play a part only in connection with the organism ; else- 
where it has no significance. Some, as Hobbes, would 
endow the elements with " actual sense and perception," 
though lacking " the organs and memory of animals to 
express their sensations." Others would attribute to them 
only a confused sentiency, which in some peculiar way 
develops under favorable conditions into our conscious 
mental life. In fact, the theory has never been thought 
out into definiteness, but has existed as a vague conception 
of an indefinite possibility, upon which materialism might 
draw whenever it got into speculative straits. There is 
only the general conception that matter is more and better 
than we have been used to thinking. It is a double-faced 
substance, has an inner side, a subjective aspect, and is 
essentially something mystic and transcendental. 



22 PSYCHOLOGY. 

At first sight this view seems promising. It appears to 
overcome the opposition between materiality and mentality, 
at least to some extent. Instead of leaving them glaring 
at each other across an impassable gulf, it unites them as 
opposite manifestations of the same thing. But, first of all, 
let us try to understand the doctrine. 

It is clear, to begin with, that this view is a distinct 
abandonment of the vulgar forms of materialism. There 
is no possibility of deducing mental facts from any physical 
facts and processes whatever. Matter, as we know it in 
physical science, is forever inadequate to the explanation 
of the lowest forms of sensation ; but matter, as we do not 
know it, accounts for the mental life. Its physical proper- 
ties explain only physics ; its mystical properties explain 
life and mind. Moreover, it is as impossible to bring phys- 
ical and mental facts into linear order on this view as it is 
on the spiritual theory. Each set of facts remains external 
to the other in both cases : but in the former we seem to 
secure a certain unity in our theory of things by attributing 
these incommensurable properties to the same subjects, 
instead of to two incommensurable classes of subjects, 
mind and matter. 

In order to make the doctrine perfectly clear in its mean- 
ing, one or two other points have to be cleared up: 

1. What are its relations to established physical science? 

2. What is the relation of the physical and the mental 
facts in this theory ? 

As to the first point, physical science is built upon the 
denial of the hylozoistic conception of. matter. Hylozoism 
for ages prevented the birth of physics, and a return to 
hylozoism would be its death. Physical science is built 
upon the sharp mechanical notions of inertia, momentum, 
velocity, mass, energy, etc. By the mental travail of 
centuries it lias wrought these notions out ; and all 
its successes have been due to them. Physics, there- 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 23 

fore, had rather let other realms alone, than by annexing 
them to destroy the clearness and sharpness of its own 
conceptions. Where these conceptions apply, hylozoism 
is excluded. 

This point deserves attention, as materialism has won 
considerable prestige from the mistaken fancy that it builds 
upon physics as its chief corner stone. In fact, however, 
the more faithful we are to physical conceptions, and the 
more clearly we grasp them in thought, the plainer becomes 
the impossibility of reaching the mental life. Physics 
needs no new definitions of matter. Materialism insists 
upon a new definition of matter. 

The second point concerns the relation of physical and 
mental facts. We may call the changes of position, group- 
ing and movement, the physical series, and the changes of 
thought, feeling, etc., the mental series. How does this 
doctrine conceive their relation ? 

This point has seldom been thought out. Several con- 
ceptions are possible. 

1. The two series may be conceived as mutually inde- 
pendent, the physical series going along by itself, and the 
mental series by itself. But in that case we should simply 
have elements acting in two incommensurable ways, neither 
of which would have any significance for the other. In 
that case the mental series would be self-contained and 
independent so far as the physical series is concerned. 
Nothing that happens in the latter would be any ground 
for the movements of the former. The outcome would be 
idealism. 

2. A rhetorical misunderstanding of the doctrine of cor- 
relation and conservation of energy has led to another 
view, in which both the physical and the mental series 
are mutually convertible expressions of a common energy. 
Why the one energy should have these antithetic forms ; 
in what way one conditions the other ; whether one form 



24: PSYCHOLOGY. 

might pass entirely into the other, so that all the energy 
of the system might become mental energy ; whether phys- 
ical energy disappears entirely from the physical system 
and vanishes into the mental realm ; and whether there are 
irruptions of mental energy into the physical system, so as 
to produce a series of faults in both systems; — these are 
questions to which there is no answer. But a rhetorical 
misunderstanding calls for no elaborate criticism. 

3. The desire to maintain the continuity and indepen- 
dence of the physical series has led to another conception, 
as follows. Each physical antecedent is expended in pro- 
ducing its physical consequent, and each consequent is 
fully explained by its antecedent. The physical series 
goes along by itself, receiving no modifications from with- 
out, and expending no energy except to produce new move- 
ments and groupings of matter, which effects in turn 
become causes, and produce other movements and group- 
ings. The mental series is not caused by this series in a 
physical sense, but only attends it as a shadow attends its 
substance. Like a shadow, it costs nothing and determines 
nothing. Life and history are pure automatism. Thought 
attends nervous action, but does not affect it. Why it 
should do so, we cannot tell. Why it should attend one 
form of nervous action rather than another, is equally un- 
known. We must either refer it to magic, or else affirm 
some obscure harmony between specific forms of nervous 
action and the thoughts which are said to attend as their 
inner " face " or otherwise. In fact, those who have held this 
view have never been careful to think out its applications. 
Sometimes, in sheer forgetfulness, the mental series is called 
an aspect or phenomenon of the physical series. We have 
seen that the mental series is never phenomenal to any one 
but its subject ; and where there is no subject there arc no 
" aspects " and no " phenomena." Suppose n atoms turn 
in a left-hand spiral, love is an aspect of this fact. But for 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 25 

whom ? For the atoms ? If so, for all or for each ? If 
not for the atoms, for what or whom ? For the motion 
itself, perhaps ! 

4. In order to leave no unintelligibility untried, some 
have claimed that the two series are identical. The thing- 
series considered subjectively is the thought-series ; and 
the thought-series considered objectively is the thing-series. 
So far as this is intelligible, it is absurd. The thing-series 
is a set of moving molecules ; the thought-series is a group 
of mental states. That one should cause the other, is an 
intelligible proposition ; that one is the other, is meaning- 
less. Moreover, this theory implies mind as the condition 
of its own existence ; for the two ways of looking at the 
same fact seem to be founded, not in the reality, but in the 
mind which grasps it. How there can be two points of 
view is an important question for this theory, but as yet it 
has not been answered. 

So far we have only sought to understand hylozoistic 
materialism. We have now to show that no interaction of 
a plurality of elements, no matter how mysterious or two- 
sided they may be, can explain the mental life without 
assuming a unitary subject of that life. The chief difficul- 
ties are these : — 

1. Thoughts and feelings demand a subject, and have no 
meaning apart from it. ^Materialism, in alliance with sen- 
sationalism, has generally ralsified experience at the start, 
by assuming that they may exist without a subject, and it 
derives most of its probability therefrom. If it were clearly 
seen that thoughts and feelings imply something that thinks 
and feels, materialism would seldom begin. If the mate- 
rialist saw that he must explain, not only the occurrence of 
mental states, but also the existence of a mental subject, 
his task would seem more formidable. But we have seen 
that the mental subject is a precondition of the mental 
state. What, then, thinks and feels in my thinking and 



26 PSYCHOLOGY. 

feeling ? We cannot say that the brain does ; for (1.) while 
the brain may produce the thought, there is no ground for 
saying that it thinks the thought ; and (2.) in any case the 
brain is an aggregate, and as such has its reality only in 
the elements which compose it. Apart from these it is 
nothing. Hence, to say that the brain thinks and feels, 
can only mean that the component elements think and feel. 
But which ? All, or some, or only one ? If only one, the 
unity and reality of the mental subject is admitted. If all 
or many think, what is the relation of their thoughts to 
mine ? If they all think my complete thought, my thought 
is not explained unless I identify myself with some one of 
the elements ; and then all the reduplications of myself in 
the other elements are superfluous. We may say that my 
thoughts are not in the elements at all, but result from 
their interaction as a function, or resultant, of the whole ; 
but this view is untenable for the following reasons. 

Suppose n elements, a, b, c, d, etc., endowed with sundry 
mystic possibilities, and entering into a highly complex in- 
teraction. As a consequence thereof, they may all enter 
into the same inner state, in, or into a series of states, 
m, n, o, r, etc., different for each. These inner states, 
owing to the mysterious double-facedness of the elements, 
may be considered as of a mental nature. The only pos- 
sible outcome of the elements' interaction is a modification 
of their space-relations and the production of these inner 
states. But each of these states is inseparable from its 
own subject. There is no way whereby m, ii, o, r, etc. may 
leave their respective subjects, and congregate in the void 
to form a compound mental state which I call mine. Such 
a notion would be like that of a series of motions which 
should break loose from their subjects and compound them- 
selves in the void to form a new motion which should be 
the motion of nothing. Hence the mental states of the 
elements must be subjective to the elements themselves, in 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 27 

which case my mental states are not explained unless I am 
identified with some one of the elements. But I cannot 
be identified with any element without thereby removing it 
from the physical series ; for that element is known only 
as having mental qualities, and is not known as having any 
physical qualities whatever. Whereas, too, all the others 
are in a state of constant change, that element is given as 
fixed and abiding. But if my mental states are not sub- 
jective to any one or all of the elements, then outside of 
a,b, c, c7, etc. there must be another element, ill, in such 
interaction with a, 5, c, d, etc. that they furnish it with the 
condition of developing mental states within itself. That 
31 is myself. 

2. A rational life by its very nature demands a unitary 
consciousness and a unitary subject. For even admitting 
that a series of states of consciousness is possible without a 
subject, we have made no progress toward a rational life. 
In that case, a, b, e, d, etc. are discrete units of feeling, and 
can never constitute a single consciousness. We repeat 
the argument already given. 

Suppose a is a sensation of color, b one of sound, c is a 
pain, d is an odor, etc. Each is an isolated existence, and 
is unable to advance beyond itself. A consciousness com- 
posed of such elements would be no consciousness at all. 
These states of consciousness must in some way be turned 
into a consciousness of states. But this latter conscious- 
ness cannot be attributed to any member of the series 
without violating the primary agreement, which was that 
each member is only a particular mental state. If a, in 
addition to being a state of consciousness, is conscious of 
b, c, d, etc., and is able to discern their nature and rela- 
tions, it has all the functions of mind attributed to it. Yet, 
plainly, if there is to be> a consciousness of coexistence or 
of sequence, of likeness or unlikeness, of unity and plural- 
ity, there must be a consciousness which, instead of being 



28 PSYCHOLOGY. 

a state of consciousness, is a consciousness of states. But 
this is not provided for by the coexistence and sequence of 
the states, but only by some unitary subject, which, standing 
over against the states, grasps them all in the unity of a 
single apprehension. Before a, b, c, d, etc. can become 
elements of a rational life, M must be given. 

3. Again, thought by its very nature must have a single 
subject. To think is to compare, to distinguish, to unite. 
But in order to any of these operations, one and the same 
conscious subject must grasp in the unity of a single act 
the things compared, distinguished, united. If M conceives 
a, and iVconceives b, no relation can be established between 
a and b. The same M must grasp both a and b in one con- 
sciousness before thought can begin. All reasoning has 
the implication. Unless the same subject grasp both prem- 
ises in a single conscious act, there can be no conclusion. 
The same is true of the consciousness of plurality. The 
knowledge of the many is possible only through the unity 
of the one. Hence not merely the consciousness of self 
as one reveals the unity of self, but much more does con- 
sciousness of the many compel the same assumption. 

4. The same conclusion is compelled by the facts of 
memory. What remembers ? The spiritualist says, The 
soul remembers ; it abides across the years and the flow 
of the body, and gathering up its past carries it with it. 
The materialist must explain the fact. We cannot say 
that the brain remembers, for the same reason that we 
cannot say that the brain thinks. The elements remember, 
then, but how ? Those which had the experience are gone, 
and yet the new-comers know all about it. The original 
elements, a, b, c, d, contributed nothing to Z, w, n, r, the 
present elements ; and yet Z, m, n, r, know what happened 
to a, b, c, d. The materialist can only say that memory 
depends on the form of nervous action, rather than on the 
identity of the component elements. But in that case we 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 29 

are left without any subject for the memory, and memory 
loses all relations to time. An organism made at first hand 
from the inorganic would have just the same mental life 
as another of the same structure which might have lived in 
the past. The former would have the same memories, 
beliefs, doubts, and expectations as the latter, and would 
be equally at home in every relation. But in that case 
memory would only be a present outcome of a special form 
of nervous action, and would lose all reference to time. 
And with all this heroic treatment, the facts would still be 
unmet. Reasoning similar to that already employed would 
show that memory demands a unitary mental subject. 
Memory involves a consciousness of temporal relations 
between certain elements of experience ; and this con- 
sciousness falls asunder without the unity and identity 
of the subject. 

Materialism in its hylozoistic form succeeds no better 
than in its vulgar form in explaining the facts of the men- 
tal life. There are certain great capital mental facts which 
cannot be explained as the outcome of any aggregate of 
physical elements, no matter how mysterious, as long as a 
special mental subject is denied. Hylozoism merely con- 
fuses two realms, and loses the advantages of both. On the 
one hand, it offers a conception of matter from which physi- 
cal science has steadily grown away, and which absolutely 
nothing in experience justifies. On the other hand, it can 
make no use of the assumed mystic properties in explaining 
our mental life. They would be mischievous in physics if 
allowed to influence our conceptions ; and they are abso- 
lutely worthless in psychology. They must be ruled out, 
therefore, from both sciences. 

Materialism fails to explain the simplest facts of con- 
sciousness. On the other hand, spiritualism fits into the 
facts so well that to spontaneous thought it seems to be a 
direct utterance of consciousness itself. In addition to the 



30 PSYCHOLOGY. 

previous considerations, certain implications of materialism 
are to be considered ; first, in its bearing on action, and 
second, in its bearing on our trust in knowledge. If these 
prove absurd or inadmissible, then the theory is doubly 
untenable. 

First, as to the bearing of materialism on action. For 
materialism the organism is all, and all physical movements 
are physically determined. These movements are accom- 
panied by thoughts and feelings, but the latter are never 
causal. They are the mental equivalent, or representative, 
of the physical process, but all reality and ground of move- 
ment are in the physical series. A volition, for example, 
does not determine action, but is rather only the symbol in 
consciousness of the physical process which underlies both 
the symbol and the appropriate action. The symbol counts 
for nothing in the dynamic sequence of events, but stands 
apart from the chain of cause and effect as a shadowy 
attendant, costing and causing nothing. 

It is plain that this is the extreme of automatism. The 
common thought is, that in the movements of history, the 
foundation of states, the founding of families, the activities 
of invention, commerce, literature, etc., the human mind 
has manifested itself as controlling. But on the theory in 
question, all this vast activity has taken place without any 
intervention of thought whatever. Thought may have at- 
tended the process, though even that becomes doubtful, as 
the only reason for affirming thought in another person is 
the conviction that his activities need thought for their ex- 
planation ; but in any case thought has added nothing. 
The elements which produced the process knew nothing of 
it, nor of the thoughts they are supposed to have produced. 
The presence of the thoughts, instead of being a help, was 
rather a hindrance, as they represent so much extra work. 
To take a single illustration, the Principia of Newton, 
and La Mecanique Cdleste of Laplace, were not the out- 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 31 

come of any thought whatever, but of a series of physical 
processes in two organisms, called, for distinction's sake, 
Newton and Laplace. There was a highly complex series 
of nervous and muscular processes in happy and profound 
adjustment to the environment, and the outcome was that 
propositions and scholia and corollaries were written down 
in the most astonishing profusion, the whole being illus- 
trated by diagrams, and founded on, or explained in, the 
most extraordinary series of equations. These are all 
bound together so as to form a chain of reasoning of the 
most cogent kind, and to express a series of the profoundest 
conceptions of physical astronomy. Yet the nerves which 
did all this knew nothing of the solar system, or of mathe- 
matics, or of themselves, or of what they were doing, or of 
the problem at which they were working, or of the attend- 
ant thoughts which they were producing. These thoughts, 
indeed, which on the common theory are the ground of the 
entire process, and its only possible explanation, are on the 
present theory only so much extra work, and hence are an 
embarrassment rather than a help or guide. This might 
be called an extreme proposition. 

The bearings of materialism on knowledge are next to 
be considered. The following points are to be noted. 

1. Suppose matter can think, it does not follow that it 
must think rightly. Its thoughts might well be of the 
nature of fancies or dreams, which, while mental states, 
nevertheless represent no facts of reality. But, remem- 
bering that the physical series is known only through the 
thought-series, it is plain that materialism must not only 
provide for a thought-series in general, but for one parallel 
to the nature of reality. Otherwise knowledge has no 
validity, and the foundations of materialism vanish. 

2. At first sight this seems easy. Since thought is the 
inner face of the physical process, we may suppose that 
the inside must correspond to the outside, like the con- 



32 PSYCHOLOGY. 

cavity and convexity of a curve. But, to get any help from 
this view, we must suppose that the thing known is that 
part of the physical process which lies over against the 
thought, or which produces it. But this is never the case, 
for then our thought would be a repetition of the nerve 
processes, whereas it never reports these directly, but 
reports rather facts and processes existing or going on 
outside of the organism entirely, such as the facts of 
physical nature, the thoughts and feelings of others, etc. 
Oddly enough, thought never grasps except indirectly the 
organic processes on which it is assumed to depend, or of 
which it is said to be the inner face. Whence, then, the 
parallelism of the thoughts arising within the organism 
with the system of nature, which is independent of the 
organism ? Either we must abandon knowledge to scepti- 
cism, or we must assume that matter by its nature is shut 
up to right thinking. Thus we come to affirm an opaque 
harmony between matter and thought. 

Some have sought to escape this admission by appealing 
to natural selection. According to them wrong thinking 
must lead to collision with reality, and thus to destruction. 
Bight thinking, again, will lead to survival, and by he- 
redity will be transmitted. Hence, in the course of time, 
natural selection will kill off all false thinking, and will 
adjust the human mind to reality, yet without assuming 
any original harmony between thought and thing. 

3. This appeal is inconsistent on the part of the mate- 
rialist for several reasons. 

a. It contradicts the asserted powerlessncss of thought. 
If thought attends, without affecting, the organism, its 
adjustment or misadjustment is equally insignificant for 
survival. Organisms survive because of their physical ad- 
justments to the system, and not because of mental adjust- 
ment. They perish also because of physical misadjustment, 
not because of mental misadjustment. Hence natural 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 33 

selection can never come into play to secure mental adjust- 
ment. It can only secure physical adjustment, but there 
is nothing in the idea of such adjustment which implies 
that thoughts must be parallel to facts. 

b. Allowing that natural selection can act, the principle 
is too narrow in its range to make it of any use as a crite- 
rion of thought in general. Plainly it could do nothing 
except in case of truth related to physical survival, whereas 
most truth has no such relation. The bulk of theory and 
speculation has such scanty reference to survival, that 
some other foundation must be sought ; and for the mate- 
rialist there is none but the assumed harmony between 
thought and fact in the nature of matter. 

c. Again, if the theory be allowed as a determining prin- 
ciple of belief, materialism is ruled out forthwith. For in 
that case wide-spread and enduring beliefs are the only 
ones which have any credibility. Beliefs contemporane- 
ous with man, or at least with civilization, catholic beliefs 
which have developed and established themselves through 
the ages, have absolute right of way, compared with local, 
sectarian, upstart beliefs. The former represent the sift- 
ing action of many centuries, and have the fullest bene- 
diction of natural selection. But natural selection has not 
dealt hitherto in materialistic beliefs. The proportion of 
materialists to spiritualists is probably less than that of 
idiots to persons of sound mind. Hence, as materialists, 
we must be careful how we appeal to natural selection, for 
thus far it has gone dead against us. 

d. If it be said that the principle has not yet had time 
to work, it can be shown that its future direction will be 
the same as in the past. There can be no doubt that 
materialism is a depressing belief compared with spiritual- 
ism. The welfare both of the individual and of society 
demands sacrifice, self-control, and high endeavor ; but 
these are born only of high conception and lofty hopes. 

3 



34 PSYCHOLOGY. 






Materialism furnishes depressing views of man, — of his 
nature, possibilities, and destiny ; and hence, in the long 
run, under the influence of natural selection, it would have 
to yield to the more hopeful and inspiring view. Plainly 
natural selection is a dangerous ally for the materialists. 

We are, then, shut up to affirm that matter by its nature 
is determined to right thoughts. But here the fact appears 
that most beliefs produced by matter are by hypothesis 
false. Since matter is the sole source of knowledge and of 
mental states, it is to blame for all superstitions, theology, 
philosophy, etc., as well as for the truths of materialism. 
Matter has founded the spiritual school of philosophy, as 
Avell as the materialistic school; indeed, thus far it has 
favored almost exclusively anti-materialistic beliefs. Now, 
since for one sound belief matter has produced a myriad un- 
sound and grotesque ones, when shall we believe it ? These 
false beliefs cannot be attributed to bad training, the con- 
tagion of example, the influence of superstition, because 
none of these things seem able to influence matter, and, if 
they exist, matter itself is responsible for them. 

The most natural conclusion under these circumstances 
would be, that all belief is untrustworthy. That which has 
such an irresistible tendency towards error, superstition, 
and falsehood as matter has, must surely be untrustworthy 
in all its deliverances. But allowing that some truth ex- 
ists, we must have a standard whereby we may disengage 
it from this tangle of error. We shall find it hard to dis- 
cover a standard which will enable us to save knowledge 
and materialism at the same time. 

1. The test of truth in this system is not necessity; for 
truth and error alike are brought forth with equal necessity 
by the nervous processes. 

2. It is not reason ; for reason is no self-centred, self- 
verifying faculty, but only a shifting of mental states as 
determined by the mechanics of the nervous system. 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 35 

3. It is not the majority ; for the majority is anti- 
materialistic. 

4. We get no help from assuming it to be found in the 
normal brain ; for then we need a test for the normal brain. 
It clearly is not the majority brain ; for this is anti-material- 
istic. Inquiry would show that the normal brain is the ma- 
terialist's brain, and is known to be normal by hypothesis. 

5. The standard of truth is not success or practical util- 
ity. Materialism is a depressing and paralyzing doctrine. 

6. In fact, materialism has no standard of truth. Indeed, 
the distinction of truth and error cannot exist for it. 
Since physical processes are all, we might as well talk of 
true or false bile, or true or false blood, as to speak of 
true or false ideas. Ideas are the inside of nervous pro- 
cesses, and their coming and going are not determined by 
their logical truth or falsehood, but by the dynamic rela- 
tions of the corresponding nervous states. But the ideas 
of physical strength and weakness are incommensurable 
with the logical ideas of truth and error. If materialism 
be true, reason is exploded. Instead of being the highest 
science and philosophy, it is rather the death of both. 

We conclude, then, that materialism is untenable, for 
two leading reasons. It fails to explain even the simplest 
mental fact ; and its implications are suicidal. To sup- 
port itself it is forced to affirm qualities in the elements 
of which physics knows nothing, and when it has con- 
structed its " new definition of matter," it stands absolutely 
helpless before the simplest fact of our rational life. It is 
further compelled to turn men into automata, and to af- 
firm that all human affairs and activities are carried on 
by agents which know nothing of themselves, or of one 
another, or of the laws according to which they work, or 
of the effects they produce. Having thus denied all the 
truths by which men and nations live, materialism is finally 
compelled to deny truth, and to drag reason itself down into 



36 PSYCHOLOGY. 

utter scepticism. Refusing to surrender, it ends the siege 
by blowing up the citadel, leaving only mental chaos 
behind it. 

We began the discussion of materialism by pointing out 
that the facts upon which it rests are ambiguous. We may 
suppose that the organism produces the mental facts, or 
that it simply conditions the activities of something other 
than itself. A further study of mental facts, however, 
convinces us that the former supposition is untenable, and 
shuts us up to the latter. Hence we view man as we find 
him, as a dual being, body and soul. By the mind we mean 
the soul in its intellectual activities. The true man is the 
soul, but the soul is connected with an organism which 
conditions the mental life. The body, however, though 
other than the soul, has still the profoundest significance 
for the soul in all its activities. It is an instrument for 
eliciting and guiding the mental development, and for put- 
ting the soul into relation with the world of things. This 
conclusion, moreover, does not rest upon our ignorance of 
brain physiology, so that advancing knowledge may at any 
time displace it. It rests rather upon the essential nature 
of consciousness, and the insight that the unity of con- 
sciousness can never result from the interaction of any 
plurality of things. Whatever progress brain-physiology 
may make, it will never bring us one step nearer to mate- 
rialism ; and all the discoveries in this realm will have to 
be interpreted in accordance with this fact. 

This view of course does not explain all difficulties, nor 
answer all questions ; for example, it does not explain how 
body and soul interact, nor the form of their interaction. 
It does not explain the nature nor the extent of the soul's 
dependence on the body. It docs not tell what physical 
facts arc connected with given mental facts, nor even why 
there should be any connection. It does not explain the 
mental effects of opium, or alcohol, or disturbances of the 



THE SUBJECT OF THE MENTAL LIFE. 37 

brain. It does not explain the physical effect of joy, or 
fear, or depression. So far as these problems can be 
solved, it must be by experience. Some of them admit 
of no solution. Experience may reveal that certain facts 
in the physical series are accompanied by certain facts in 
the mental series, and conversely ; but the ground of their 
connection will always remain a mystery. Physiology, psy- 
chology, and pathology, working together, have the task of 
finding the actual relations of the two series ; but before this 
can be done, the two series must be separately studied by 
the methods proper to each. No peering even into the liv- 
ing brain would give the least suspicion of the mental series 
attending it. Conversely, no inspection of consciousness 
can reveal the physical facts by which it is conditioned. 
In this way, by keeping separate things separate, we may 
hope to learn something of the psychical significance of the 
body, and of the physical significance of the mind. But if 
the two series were fully known, and were even found to 
run parallel throughout their entire length, we should still 
have simply a coincidence to be accepted, not a connection 
to be understood. 

But while this view docs not remove all difficulties, it 
does relieve some. It enables us to use the language of 
spontaneous thought without constant inconsistency. It 
frees us from the need of talking of feelings which be- 
long to no one, and of mental states which are states of 
nothing. It also removes the necessity of hypostasizing 
consciousness into a fictitious mental subject in order to 
escape admitting a real one. It makes it unnecessary to 
repudiate all the utterances of our spontaneous conscious- 
ness. Finally, it saves us from the somewhat tedious 
superficialities and drolleries of materialism, — a service 
by no means to be undervalued. Such are its negative 
advantages. Positively, it provides for the unity and con- 
tinuity of the mental life ; and it agrees so well with our 



38 PSYCHOLOGY. 

spontaneous consciousness, that it almost seems like an 
immediate deliverance of the same. Finally, by displacing 
the manikin conception of humanity, it provides for some 
consistent recognition of the ideals and practical principles 
by which both men and nations live. The dreary folly of 
laboriously building up speculative theories, which every 
hour we practically deny, may seem very brilliant for a 
while, but it grows tiresome at last. 



SENSATION. 39 



CHAPTER II. 

SENSATION. 

By sensation we mean that peculiar affection of the 
sensibility which is referred to some extra-mental cause. 
In this respect, sensation differs from emotion ; for the 
latter, while a state of the sensibility, arises from the 
nature of our mental states themselves, and is not referred 
directly to any external cause. There is no need to inquire 
whether this objective reference be objectively valid ; for 
in any case it is actually made, and serves as a mark of 
distinction. 

In our mature life, sensations have a double reference. 
(1.) They are referred to the self as their subject, and 
(2.) they are referred to extra-mental objects, either as 
their qualities or as caused by them. In the latter refer- 
ence, sensation passes into perception. Thus the sensa- 
tion of light seems not so much a subjective state as the 
perception of an objective quality. Our present study deals 
with sensations only as subjective states. 

Of the conditions of sensation nothing can be said 
apriori. A certain nervous change is attended with a 
sensation of light, another with that of sound, another 
with pain, etc. But why they should be attended with 
certain sensations and not with others, no one knows. 
Or why they should be attended with sensation at all, 
while others are not, is equally unknown. Or why sensa- 
tion should result only from movements in the organism, 
and not from extra-organic movements, is likewise myste- 
rious. The doctrine of the clairvoyants, who claim to see 
by some direct gaze of the soul, and without mediation of 



40 PSYCHOLOGY. 






the organs of sense, is in itself no more mysterious than 
the actual order of experience. Apriori, one order is as 
possible as another. The actual order must be learned 
from experience. 

The actual conditions of sensation are found in some 
form of nervous change. The causes of this change are 
often external to the organism ; often they are within the 
organism, and sometimes they are in the mind itself. Cor- 
responding thereto, we have respectively the extra-organic 
or objective sensations, the organic, and the subjective 
sensations. 

Supposing the end of a nerve disturbed in any way, this 
disturbance must be propagated to the brain. What hap- 
pens in the nerve is purely a matter of speculation. A 
thoughtless form of speech often regards the nerves as 
carrying the sensation to the mind, but a moment's reflec- 
tion reveals the absurdity. Sensations are not things 
which can be handed along from one atom to another, as 
a letter is passed from hand to hand, and hence, if the 
nerves were full of sensations, they would not explain mine. 
In accordance with our general views of matter, we regard 
the nerves as a molecular complex ; and hence we must 
hold that molecular movement is the essential phenomenon 
of nervous action. At all events, it is found that some- 
thing takes place in the nerve, and that this is propagated 
through the nerve at a rate of from one hundred to three 
hundred feet a second. It is further found, that no sensa- 
tion results if the nerve-line be not continued unbroken to 
the central organ. When this is the case, and the nervous 
affection is propagated to the brain, there results a fact of 
a new order, a conscious sensation. This is purely a mental 
state. It is not contributed to the mind by the nerves ; and 
the nerves themselves do not feel. Sensation is a mental 
reaction against nervous action. 

This fact is inexplicable on any theory. No materialist 



SENSATION. 41 

would claim that any analysis of ether- or air-waves, or of 
a vibrating nerve, would ever lead us to the point where 
we should see a sensation emerging as its necessary con- 
sequence. He would be compelled to accept the fact as a 
mystery. On the other hand, no spiritualist would claim 
to know why a given form of nervous action should be 
attended by one form, and intensity, of sensation, rather 
than another. There is nothing in the cause to suggest 
the effect ; and, conversely, nothing in the effect to suggest 
the cause. Just as no reflection on a vibrating nerve gives 
sensation as its effect, so no reflection on the sensation 
reveals a vibrating nerve as its cause. All but the circle- 
squaring type of minds have abandoned the attempt to tell 
how, or why, nervous action is followed by sensation ; or 
why one form of nervous action is followed by one form 
of sensation, and another form by another. All study in 
this direction is lost, and indicates utter inability to deal 
with the problem in general. The two orders are con- 
nected in fact ; but there is nothing difficult in the notion 
that the mental series should be connected with a totally 
different physical series, either in other animals or in other 
spheres of being. 

Thus far we have considered the conditions of sensation 
only in the most general way. In their further study we 
begin with the nervous excitant or stimulus. 

This is different for different nerves. Speaking broadly, 
we may say that the normal excitant for the optic nerve is 
light ; for the ear, sound ; for the touch, contact and a cer- 
tain measure of resistance ; for the sense of temperature, 
heat ; and for the senses of taste and smell, certain chem- 
ical changes in the corresponding nerves. In most of these 
cases, however, the action of the excitant is more complex 
than was formerly thought. The structure of the eye is 
such as to allow only ether-vibration to reach the optic 
nerve, but the simple falling of light upon the nerve does 



42 



PSYCHOLOGY. 



not produce the sensation of light. Both the optic nerves 
and fibres are insensible to light, as appears from the 
so-called blind spot and the Purkinje figures. Behind the 
optic fibres is the region of the rods and cones, and the vis- 
ual purple ; and here it is that the sensibility to light is 
found. It has been suggested that photo-chemical changes 
in this region are the true stimuli. In the case of the 
ear, sound is the external stimulus ; but the auditory 
mechanism is extremely complex, and the functions of 
its several parts are unknown. How auditory impulses 
are generated in the organ of Corti is as mysterious, as 
how visual impulses are generated in the region of the 
rods and cones of the eye. Sensations of temperature are 
due to changes of heat; but the heat, instead of acting 
directly upon the nerve, may produce its effect by various 
modifications of the surrounding physical structure. The 
skin and tongue, likewise, have curious structures, whose 
function may be to give the external excitant a form 
adapted to the nerve. It has been supposed that sensa- 
tions of touch are due to one set of terminal organs in the 
skin, and sensations of temperature to another ; but how 
the different stimuli act upon these organs is unknown. 
Smell, too, is due to contact of odorous particles with the 
olfactory membrane, but it seems necessary that the sub- 
stance be in a gaseous form. When the nostril is filled 
with rose-water, no odor is perceived ; though this might 
well be due to a temporary paralysis of the nerve, as filling 
the nose with water suffices to suspend smell for a time. 
There remains, therefore, a great deal that is mysterious 
in the action of the external stimulus upon the nerves. 
In the case of the organic sensations, nothing is known of 
the form and mode of action of the stimulus. A certain 
state of the muscles, or viscera, or the nerves themselves, 
becomes a ground of sensation, but why, or how, is 
unknown. 



SENSATION. 43 

For objective sensations the excitant is generally peculiar 
for each class ; for light, ether-waves ; for sound, air-waves ; 
for taste, chemical action, etc. But it appears that any 
agent which affects the special nerves may produce the 
appropriate sensations. Thus a blow on the head, or 
pressure of the eyeball, may produce the sensation of 
light ; a blow also may produce a ringing in the ears ; 
while electricity serves to excite all the senses. From 
such facts the conclusion has been drawn that a given 
class of sensations may be produced by various stimuli. 
But the facts are not absolutely unambiguous. We do not 
know what constitutes an adequate stimulus in any case ; 
and we do not know what modifications the external stimu- 
lus undergoes before the final effect is produced. It may 
be, then, that a given class of sensations has only one 
adequate stimulus, and that, in the cases referred to, this 
adequate stimulus is produced in an unwonted manner. 
The pressure of the eyeball might cause a sensation of 
light, by setting the ether in the eye in vibration. Elec- 
tricity might work equally indirectly ; producing in the 
nerves those changes which are the proximate stimuli of 
their appropriate functions. It is at least conceivable 
that given sensory impulses are aroused only by stimuli 
of a special character, and that the action of irregular 
stimuli consists in producing the adequate stimulus in an 
extraordinary manner. The point admits of no positive 
decision. 

Sensations differ in quality to such a degree as to fall 
into completely incommensurable classes. The sensations 
of sound, light, pressure, odor, warmth, etc., have nothing 
whatever in common, except that they are all affections of 
the sensibility. There is no possibility of regarding them 
as multiples of a common unit. But for the differences of 
effects there must be some difference in the cause. We 
may seek for this difference, (1.) in the external stimuli, 



44 



PSYCHOLOGY. 



(2.) in some specific energy of the nerves, and (3.) in the 
form of nervous action. 

1. The external stimulus falls into different classes, as 
air- and ether-waves, mechanical pressure, and chemical 
action ; but this difference of stimulus becomes significant 
only as it produces difference of nervous action. It is, 
however, far from plain that the peculiarities of the stimu- 
lus pass over into the nervous action, so as to found the 
absolute difference of sensations ; e. g., the enormous differ- 
ence of velocity between waves of light and those of sound 
disappears from the wave of molecular movement trans- 
mitted along the nerves. 

2. The most natural supposition would be, that each 
nerve has some specific peculiarity, whereby it becomes 
the sufficient ground of the corresponding sensation. If 
such a difference were admitted, a reason would be given 
for the difference of sensations, and for the fact that a 
given nerve seems to respond to all stimuli only with 
its appropriate sensation. Of course, the simple fact that 
a certain nerve is the auditory nerve would contain no 
explanation of auditory sensations; there must be some 
difference of structure to found its specific qualities. For 
a long time this view was held, under the name of the 
specific energy of the nerves. However, anatomy reveals 
no difference of nerve structure on which to base the dif- 
ference of function, and hence the doctrine lias been largely 
abandoned, or at least greatly limited. The essential ele- 
ments of all nerves, motory and sensory alike, seem to be 
the same ; and now it is sought to account for the differ- 
ence of function by difference of connection. In that case, 
the nerves would be like the wires of an electric battery, 
which do various kinds of work according to their con- 
nections at either end, and not according to any specific 
difference of structure in the wires themselves. Connected 
with a telephone, they send out one set of signals ; con- 



SENSATION. 45 

nected with a Morse instrument, they send quite another. 
Again, the effect of a current will vary also with the 
connections at the other end, producing ticking, articu- 
lations, incandescence, explosion, etc., according to the 
circumstances. 

3. On this view, we must have the ground of the peculiar 
action of special nerves at one end or the other, or at both. 
In the case of the special senses we find a series of peculiar 
mechanisms for the reception and working over of external 
stimuli, and these seem fitted to give the action a peculiar 
form, which might serve as the ground of the sensational 
difference. Opposed to this is the fact that the optic nerve, 
if affected anywhere along its length, responds with a sen- 
sation of light. This would point to some peculiarity 
either of the nerve itself, or of its terminal structure or 
connection. The former view having been abandoned, we 
have only the latter left. And anatomy does reveal many 
peculiar structures in the brain ; and we might suppose that 
the nervous action, whatever its form, may receive here a 
new and final transformation, which first fits it to be the 
ground of sensation. We should in that case maintain the 
doctrine of a specific energy, not, indeed, of the nervous 
fibres, but of the central organ. But this view also has its 
difficulties. (1.) It ought to be possible to furnish persons 
born blind or deaf the sensations of light or sound, provided 
the trouble is due to some imperfection of the external 
organs ; but this does not seem to be the case. (2.) The 
view would demand an absolute constancy of function which 
does not exist. Many facts are reported which point to 
a vicarious action of the nerves, so that a given nervous 
tract can take upon itself the labors of another area upon 
occasion. 

On all these accounts, the tendency in physiology is 
toward the following view. The sensory nerves (omitting 
all reference to the motor nerves) have primarily no differ- 



46 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ence of function ; and the ground of their actual difference 
lies originally in . their peripheral endings and the stimuli 
to which they give access to the nerves. These endings, 
however, give the nervous action a certain form ; and, as 
they condition nearly all the stimuli which reach the nerves, 
a given nerve is confined almost exclusively to one form of 
nervous action. Hence the nerve gradually adjusts itself 
to that form, and when disturbed at any point, or by any 
cause, it tends to take on that form, just as the wood of a 
violin tends to adjust itself to harmonious vibrations, and 
becomes more effective thereby. In this way a kind of 
acquired specific energy would arise, whereby, within cer- 
tain limits, a given nerve would remain faithful to its ac- 
quired modes of action. In this way we should explain 
the fact that sensations of light and sound remain possible 
long after the destruction of the external organs. But 
while the tendency is toward this view, it cannot be re- 
garded as universally accepted. It is still held by many, 
that certain fibres in the ear are sensitive only to certain 
tones, like the strings of an instrument, and that different 
sets of visual fibres correspond to the three colors green, 
red, and violet. The other colors are supposed to arise from 
the varying activities of these fibres. Others agree in af- 
firming differences of function in the optical fibres, but dif- 
fer in their conception of the basal colors. It is not always 
easy, however, to see how these views serve the purpose of 
their invention. The facts of color-blindness would find 
an easy explanation in them ; but it is not clear how blue or 
yellow is to arise from a simultaneous excitation of the 
fibres which produce green, red, and violet. 

It is plain from the foregoing, that concerning the par- 
ticular form of the nervous action nothing can be known. 
To what extent the original vibration of the ether is modified 
in the retina, and in its passage through the central organs 
of vision, is beyond all suspicion. Our current physical 



SENSATION. 47 

science, however, leaves us no choice but to regard the 
action as some form of movement ; and as vibrations are 
always fashionable, we may view it as a species of vibration. 
We might in that case assume that the difference of sensa- 
tions depends upon the difference in these vibrations. They 
might be conceived as longitudinal, or transverse, or as 
moving in closed orbits and with different velocities. Leav- 
ing such fancies to themselves, we may point out that sim- 
ple movements of matter, of whatever sort, can never be a 
sufficient ground of sensation. Such movements are simply 
a passage of one or more elements from one point to an- 
other ; and there is no way of connecting them with mental 
changes except by supposing that there is a deeper dynamic 
relation which is the real ground of the sensation. Indeed, 
metaphysics convinces us that, even in the physical world, 
the spatial system of changes among things is really only 
the visible translation of a metaphysical system of inter- 
action in things. Things do not act on one another because 
they move, but they move because they act on one another. 
It is not the fact that the nerve molecules vibrate which fits 
them to the ground of sensation, but the fact that they are 
in dynamic relations with the soul. The sensations, there- 
fore, are not to be referred to the vibrations, but rather to 
that internal energy of which the vibration is the spatial 
expression. But since the relation between the inner en- 
ergy and the spatial expression is regarded as constant, we 
may take the latter as the equivalent of the former, and 
continue to speak of vibrations as the ground of sensation. 
This conception of nervous action implies that all ante- 
cedents of sensation can be conceived as phases of a com- 
mon process, so that by varying the common factors we 
might pass through the entire series. By modifying ve- 
locity and direction any form of vibration might be made 
to pass into any other whatever. In that case, all sensory 
impulses might be arranged on a scale like the colors of 



48 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the spectrum or the notes of music. But such an order 
would lead us to expect a corresponding community in the 
members of the sensational series and the possibility of 
arranging our sensations on a common scale. Such a fact, 
however, does not exist. It is not always easy to find a 
common element in the sensations of the same nerve, e. g. 
the optic nerve ; and it is impossible to find any common 
feature in the data of the different senses, or any possibility 
of passing from one to the other by intermediate gradations. 
Such a possibility may exist on the physical side, but it 
does not exist on the mental side. In a later paragraph 
we shall refer to the attempt to reduce our sensations to a 
common sensational unit. 

Our complete ignorance of what takes place in the nerves 
is no psychological loss. For practical purposes, we should 
be no wiser if we had the profoundest insight into the 
action of the external stimulus ; and psychologically, also, 
we should be no better off if we knew all about the form of 
the nervous action in any special experience, and the place 
of its location. The ability to locate and describe every 
sensory and motor process would only give us an exact 
knowledge of the physical antecedents of sensation, but 
would bring us no nearer to comprehending how they pro- 
duce sensations, or how sensations are worked over after 
they are produced, or even what the sensations are. Indeed, 
the facts with which we have been dealing are not properly 
psychological facts at all. The idealist, of course, would 
deny that they are facts of any kind. 

Another question of considerable interest, but of about 
as little psychological significance, concerns the relation of 
the intensity of the sensation to that of the stimulus. 

Sensations differ in quality, and thereby are distinguished 
into different classes. Sensations of the same class differ 
in intensity, and the commonest experiences show that this 
varies with the stimulus. In seeking for the relation be- 



SENSATION. 49 

tween the intensity of sensation and nervous action, it is, 
of course, impossible to observe the nervous action which 
immediately precedes the sensation, and it only remains 
to study the relation between sensation and the exter- 
nal stimulus. Several difficulties may be mentioned in 
advance. 

1. The distinction of intensity itself is generally a quali- 
tative as well as a quantitative one, and in most cases it is 
due to an unwillingness to multiply classes beyond neces- 
sity. In fact, the sensations of the same class, which, out 
of respect for established classification, we regard as differ- 
ing only in intensity, differ also in quality. Hence, a vary- 
ing intensity of the stimulus often produces, not a more 
intense sensation, but a different one. Increase of pressure, 
heat, light, or intensity of flavor or odor results in sen- 
sations of different qualitative nature. Cold is not a faint 
sensation of warmth ; and a burn is not an intensified glow 
of comfort. A given flavor diluted may have a pleasing 
taste ; concentrated, it may be utterly disgusting. Yet it 
would hardly do to call the disgust intensified pleasure be- 
cause the stimuli in the two cases differ only in intensity. 
It is only in the case of sounds that we can distinguish with 
any certainty a quality (the pitch) which remains the same 
through all variations of intensity. 

2. The effect never depends entirely upon the external 
stimulus. The state of the nervous system, the amount of 
expectation and attention, the continuance of effects in the 
nerves after the stimulus has been removed, are all to be 
taken into account. An exhausted nerve responds with 
diminishing vigor. An excited nerve, especially the optic 
nerve, continues to produce sensation after the stimulus is 
removed. After-images, the vision of complementary colors, 
and the temporary blindness after looking at the sun, are 
examples. Sensations of temperature, on the other hand, 
depend, within certain limits, altogether on the direction of 

4 



50 PSYCHOLOGY. 

change ; so that the same absolute temperature may be felt 
as either hot or cold, according to circumstances. 

These difficulties would be fatal, if the aim were to find 
a fixed connection between a given intensity of stimulus 
and a given intensity of sensation. Discounting such high 
claims, we may glance at what has been done in this field. 

It is easy to arrange a series of stimuli of a given class 
on a numerical scale, so that their relative intensity can be 
seen or calculated. It is equally easy to observe the re- 
sulting sensations, but it is not possible to arrange their 
intensities on a numerical scale. We have, indeed, a fine 
sense for more or less, but we cannot tell how much more 
or less. We find no sensation of which we can say that it 
is just twice as strong as another. If this were possible, 
our task would be easy. We should only need to compare 
the numerical scale of the resulting sensations in order to 
get the law of their connection. 

But since this is impossible, we must adopt some indirect 
method. E. g., we may take some stimulus of measured 
intensity, and increase or decrease it gradually, and note 
the point at which an increase or decrease of sensation is 
perceptible. The process may be repeated in either direc- 
tion, and thus we may get the following scale : 

o, Si, S 2 , aS 3 , o 4 , o 5 , /S 6 , o n ; 

a, a 1? a 2y #3, #4, #5, # 6 , tf n ; 

where S, etc. represent the just distinguishable sensa- 
tions, and a, etc. represent the stimuli. The series a, a 1? 
etc. may be a series of weights ; and S, S x , etc. may be 
a scries of just distinguishable sensations of weight. We 
should find that the same increase of stimulus which pro- 
duces a feeling of change in the lower members of the 
series does not suffice to produce such feeling in the higher 
members ; e.g., we can easily distinguish between one and 
two ounces, but not between ten pounds and ten pounds 



SENSATION. 51 

and one ounce. Or we can see at once that a two-inch 
line is longer than a one inch line, but not that a line 
fifty-one inches long is longer than another of fifty inches. 
In order to produce a sense of difference, the increase of 
stimulus must bear some general proportion to the stimulus 
itself. E. H. Weber, who first broke ground in this matter, 
declared the law to be, that the increase of the stimulus 
must be a fixed proportion of the stimulus ; e. g., if, holding 
a pound weight, I must add an ounce in order to perceive 
a difference, then, holding a two-pound weight, I must add 
two ounces before any difference is perceived. In like 
manner, n pounds must be increased by n ounces to pro- 
duce a sense of difference. This ratio is different for the 
different senses, being about 3 : 4 for the ear and feelings 
of pressure, 15 : 16 for muscular sensations, and 100 : 101 
for the eye. We should also find that, below a certain 
point, there would be no sensation. This point is called 
the " threshold," and determines the absolute sensibility of 
the nerve in question. The constant fraction which must 
be added to produce a feeling of difference determines the 
discriminative sensibility. 

The formula we have given is known as Weber's law, 
and the method described was employed by Weber himself, 
and is known as the method of smallest perceptible differ- 
ences. Besides this, various other methods are employed 
for the same purpose of establishing a relation between the 
intensity of the sensation and the stimulus, but they add 
nothing to the result. The law itself is valid only within 
narrow limits. It does not hold at all for some classes of 
sensations, and is invalid for others whenever the stimulus 
is very large or very small. 

This empirical law has been transformed by Fechner, so 
as to express the numerical relation between the variation 
of the stimulus and that of the sensation. Recurring to 
the two series, 



52 







PSYCHOLOGY. 




s 9 


/Si, 


$21 ^3? ^4? ••■••« 


■ • #r 


a, 


«u 


a 2 , #3, #4, . . . . 


■ • «n 



the latter series, by Weber's law, increases in geometrical 
progression. If now we assume that the smallest percepti- 
ble difference, S n — $ n _ l5 is a constant quantity wherever 
it occurs in the series, then the series S, /Si, etc. increases 
in arithmetical progression. In that case, S, S 19 etc. 
would not increase as a, a 1? a 2 > e ^c, but as the logarithm 
of the respective terms, and the intensity of the sensation 
would vary as the logarithm of the stimulus. This is 
Fechner's law. It has several short-comings : — 

1. It assumes the absolute validity of Weber's law, 
whereas that is only an empirical rule with many 
exceptions. 

2. It assumes the constancy of the least perceptible 
difference for all points of the scale, which is not only 
arbitrary, but doubtful. 

3. It assumes that intensity is the only standard of dis- 
tinction among the resulting sensations. But we have 
seen that different intensities of stimulus are often attended 
by qualitative differences of sensation; and these might 
well be the ground of distinction. The possibility at least 
deserves attention. 

4. Fechner's formula taken absolutely leads to psy- 
chological nonsense. Mathematically expressed, it would 
read, 

S =K, log JE, 

where K is a constant and U is the stimulus. Hence for 
^=lwc should have 

jS= K, log U=0; 

and for E < 1 we should have S = a minus quantity ; and 
finally, for E = we should have S = — oo. 

That is, for the unit of stimulus we should have no sen- 



SENSATION. 53 

sation ; for anything less than this we should have negative 
sensations ; and finally, for zero stimulus we should have 
an infinite negative sensation. That is, in the name of a 
mathematical formula, psychology is loaded down with 
meaningless absurdity. 

Since the terms compared in the previous estimates are 
the external stimulus and the subjective perception of dif- 
ference, which are at least one remove of mediated action 
from each other, Weber's law admits of a threefold inter- 
pretation. We may regard it as expressing the relation of 
the stimulus to the nervous action, or of the nervous action 
to mental change, or of the nervous action to our power of 
discrimination. These have been called respectively the 
physiological, the psychophysical, and the psychological in- 
terpretations of Weber's law. The second view differs from 
the third in assuming a continuous order of mental change, 
which corresponds with the continuity of the physical 
change, but which may or may not be conscious. On this 
view the law expresses the relation of the nervous action 
to this psychical reaction. Consciousness is something 
which results from this psychical activity when it reaches 
a certain degree of intensity, called the u threshold." 

The physiological view is exposed to the objection, that 
it assumes a continuity of physical causation without 
assignable continuity of physical effect. The cause in- 
creases continuously, while the effect increases discontinu- 
ously. To explain this, we must assume some imaginary 
complexity of nervous structure, or some imaginary laws 
of nervous action. This view makes Weber's law purely 
physiological, and without any psychological significance. 
It assumes, also, that the nervous action and the mental 
effect vary in the same proportion. 

The psychophysical explanation has been objected to by 
the physiologists, as not accounting for the varying degrees 
of sensibility to difference in the different senses. But this 



54 PSYCHOLOGY. 

objection assumes, (1.) that the fact is clearer on the physio- 
logical theory, which is a mistake; and (2.) that there is 
some common factor in the nervous process which is to 
be transmuted into a mental process. But if we have to 
admit that certain nerve processes are attended by certain 
sensations, and certain others by other sensations, there is 
no difficulty in admitting that more energy is required to 
produce certain kinds of mental change than to produce 
certain others. In truth, neither this theory nor the pre- 
ceding one contains any account of the discontinuity of the 
sensational series. Even if we admit Fechner's law, we 
are unable to deduce the discontinuity in question; for 
then, for each variation of the stimulus, there ought to be 
some variation of the sensation. The defenders of each 
view have generally sought to maintain Fechner's formula 
rather than to deduce "Weber's facts. 

The psychological theory is nearer the facts than either 
of the others. In Weber's law, the subjective factor is 
really our power of discrimination ; and the law does not 
express a relation between the stimulus and the sensation 
considered as an isolated mental state or a phase of psy- 
chical activity, but between the stimulus and our power 
to perceive differences. However the mental change may 
vary in relation to the stimulus, this change must reach 
a certain degree to become perceptible. This degree, more- 
over, is variable. Attention and practice greatly increase 
our power of appreciating differences ; e. g., with the blind, 
touch almost takes on the character of a new sense. This 
is not a very striking or valuable result ; but it is the gist 
of the matter. A somewhat blind enthusiasm has magni- 
fied Fechner's formula into undue importance. So far as 
true, it represents simply an interesting fact, but no sig- 
nificant principle. As far as one can judge from the con- 
fused utterances on the subject, there seems to be a fancy 
that the discovery of a measurable intensity and duration 



SENSATION. 55 

in sensation in some way proves the mind to be a physical 
product. 1 

The duration of the sensation in general is about the 
same as that of the stimulus. This is especially the case 
with hearing and touch. In some cases, however, the sen- 
sation continues to some extent after the external stimulus 
is removed. This is best explained by supposing the ner- 
vous action to continue beyond the excitement, and only 
gradually to die away. This may be due either to changes 
in the surrounding physical structure, as in case of heat, 
or to direct continuance in the nerves themselves, as in 
the optic nerve. It is in the eye that the phenomena are 
especially noticeable, and often annoying. After-images are 
examples. When we look at some bright object and then 
close the eyes, an image often persists. These are called 
positive after-images, and are best seen after momentary 
action of the stimulus. When a white object on a black 
ground is intently gazed at, and the eyes are then turned 
to a white ground, the object will appear as a gray image 
on the white ground. A black object on a white ground 
has a white negative image on a gray ground. The other 
colors have negative images in their complementary colors. 
These facts have been explained as owing to exhaustion of 
the retinal area upon which the original image fell, so that 
the subsequent stimulation finds a part of the area less 
sensitive than the surrounding parts, and thus the after- 
image arises. If we suppose the area which received the 
image of the white spot to be exhausted, then, on turning 
the eye to a white ground, that area will be less sensitive 
to the light than the other parts, and thus will give rise to 
a negative image. This explanation, however, does not 

1 On this subject see Fechner's works, especially his Revision der Haitpt- 
pimlcte der Psychophysik ; Delbceuf 's Elements de la Psychophysique ; Wundt's 
Physiologiscke Psychologie ; and G. E. Muller's Zur Grundlegung der Psycho- 
physik. 



56 PSYCHOLOGY. 

clearly apply to those after-images which arise when there 
is no second stimulation. The eyes may he kept shut, and 
all light excluded, and after-images may still result. The 
white spot appears as a hlack spot, and conversely the 
black spot appears light. The explanation of these facts 
is purely hypothetical. Finally, the optic nerve seems 
never entirely inactive, but always produces some sensa- 
tions of light, varying greatly, however, with the state of 
the eye, and with the constitution of the person. 

It is this fact, that the nerves as a rule quickly re- 
turn to their equilibrium of indifference, which fits them 
to be servants of intelligence. Otherwise all consecutive 
excitations would run together, and all rapid action of the 
senses would be impossible because of the resulting con- 
fusion. 

Thus far we have spoken only of the stimulus and the 
nervous action. We have seen that the latter subject is 
wrapped in mystery, and is likely to remain so. At the 
same time, we have seen that this is no psychological loss, 
as the outcome of even a perfect knowledge of the subject 
would give us no hint of the psychical nature of sensations, 
but only of their physical conditions. And since, from a 
causal standpoint, their connection is purely arbitrary, we 
have no ground for thinking that the same order might not 
be produced in entirely different ways, or for thinking that 
our sensations exhaust the possibilities of the case. The 
system of sensations is not a closed one, and its members 
have no internal unity. It is, therefore, entirely possible 
that differently organized beings have orders of sensation 
of which we have no suspicion, and are affected by agencies 
to which our nerves make no response. Of course, this 
possibility does not assure the fact. We pass now to con- 
sider the sensations themselves. 

Simple sensations arc said to be distinguished in quality, 
intensity, and tone. Of course, they may be distinguished 



SENSATION. 57 

in time, duration, localization, etc. ; but these are qualities 
which do not belong to them in themselves, but only in 
their relations. The primal distinction is that of quality. 
The other two are more doubtful. It seems probable that 
they arise from a certain regard for logical convenience, 
rather than from a study of the sensations themselves. 
The mind has an obvious interest in reducing the number 
of classes to a mininum, and thus a great many qualitative 
differences are overlooked. Nevertheless, they must be 
taken into account in some way, and then some new dis- 
tinction must be invented whereby the classification may 
be retained and the differences be recognized. In this way 
the notions of intensity and tone arise. We have seen 
that the so-called differences of intensity are generally 
qualitative, and the same may be said for differences of 
tone. Sensations with different tone are qualitatively 
different sensations, but for convenience' sake they are 
identified in quality and distinguished in tone. This 
method is further supposed by the reference of our sen- 
sations to things as their qualities. In this way the 
sensations take on the fixedness of things, and all dis- 
tinction must be put either in the intensity or in the tone. 
Previous to classification and objective reference, however, 
all differences must be regarded as qualitative. Thereafter 
the distinctions made must be recognized. It seems proba- 
ble that the classification of sensations depends largely 
upon their localization, so that they are grouped rather by 
the community of organ than by similarity of content. A 
consciousness furnished with our sensational experience, 
but without knowledge of the organs of sense would hardly 
group its sensations as we do. 

That which we have spoken of as tone is more commonly 
called feeling ; and some, as Hamilton, have called it sensa- 
tion. This curious uncertainty arises in this way. Some 
of our sensations are objectified as qualities of things, while 



58 PSYCHOLOGY. 

others are recognized simply as states of our sensibility, 
and have no objective reference. Thus the former come to 
be distinguished from the latter as percepts from sensa- 
tions. Again, a certain amount of organic feeling attends 
the action of the external senses, and in the case of taste 
and smell it is so high as almost to obscure the perceptive 
element. Hence Hamilton laid down the law that sensa- 
tion and perception vary inversely, where sensation can 
only mean the organic feeling attending the action of the 
senses. But as we have used sensation to designate any of 
the effects produced in us by the action of the outer world, 
we cannot adopt the Hamiltonian terminology. Nor do we 
propose to use the term tone. We are here at a parting of 
the ways in the mental life. Our sensations as a whole 
have a double reference. They may present an object to 
the intellect, and they may be simply an experience in the 
sensibility. They may be projected outward as qualities of 
things, and they may remain as simply states of feeling. 
After the projection takes place, our sensations seem to be 
really perceptions, and to have no sensational element. 
This seems to be found only in the other set. Here is the 
beginning of the distinction between knowing and feeling, 
or between the intellect and the sensibility. Again, in the 
case of the projected sensations we find an accompanying 
element of sensibility, which varies greatly with circum- 
stances, and which is well described as the tone of the 
sensation. This tone is an addition to the mental object 
as presented to the intellect ; it is a coloring given to it by 
the sensibility. Sensations may be roughly divided into 
percepts and physical feelings ; but neither of these classes 
exists in absolute purity. 

Out of the facts just mentioned springs the distinction of 
the intellectual and the organic sensations. The former 
arc so called because they appear to reveal to us the world 
of things, while the latter only reveal to us something 



SENSATION. 59 

about ourselves and our bodies. Some scruples might be 
raised if this distinction were made absolute ; but it is 
sufficiently correct for practical purposes. 

The intellectual sensations are those commonly ascribed 
to the five senses, — ■ smell, taste, touch, hearing, and vision. 
The last three are called pre-eminently the intellectual 
senses, because they contribute immeasurably more knowl- 
edge than taste or smell. 

The organic sensations have largely the teleological func- 
tion of giving warning of organic needs or dangers. Such 
especially are hunger and thirst, and their opposites ; and 
also the feelings of strain and weariness. The sensations 
connected with motion are especially significant for the 
regulation of motion and the position of the body. These 
are often of a marvellous degree of fineness, and any dis- 
turbance of them is sure to be attended with clumsy or 
uncertain movements. The digestive system also may be 
the seat of not over-pleasant sensations. The nervous sys- 
tem too may be variously disturbed, and give rise to vari- 
ous sensations, marked or obscure. From the total action 
of the organic factors results a general tone of feeling, 
as of vigor or languor, comfort or discomfort, etc. The 
general character of the organic sensations is, that they 
are directly related to action, either as attendants, or as 
results, or as stimuli, and are only indirectly related to 
knowledge. 

The proper source of the sensations connected with 
motion has been much discussed. Three classes are 
given, — (1.) sensations of the skin, (2.) sensations of the 
muscles, and (3.) sensations of the brain due to innerva- 
tion. In sensations of the third class we are supposed 
especially to have a feeling of effort, and a sense of ef- 
fort has been added to the list of senses on this account. 
Naturally there have been attempts to recognize only one 
source. Some have sought to explain the muscular sen- 



60 PSYCHOLOGY. 

sations as really due to the changes in the skin produced 
by expansion and contraction of the muscles. The re- 
ality of a special muscular sense, however, may be re- 
garded as established. The third class of sensations has 
been questioned as being only echoes of the muscular 
sense. The sense of effort may be a complex result of pe- 
ripheral changes, and not something arising directly in the 
brain from the impulse of the will. In favor of the central 
sense is the fact that a paralytic may be conscious of effort 
when no movement results ; although it is suggested in 
reply that the effect may be due to movement in other 
parts of the organism. It is further urged, that the dis- 
crimination of weight depends on our sense of effort ; but, 
on the other hand, this discrimination takes place, though 
not so accurately, when muscular contraction is artificially 
produced. The sense of effort is a somewhat doubtful 
hypothesis. 

Organic sensations are often called subjective, particu- 
larly those which arise from the mental state. Sometimes, 
too, sensations which normally have an extra-organic cause 
are produced by abnormal states of the organism. Such 
are the sights and sounds which often accompany brain 
disease, or the delirium of fever, etc. Such, too, is the 
influence of the mind upon the body, that certain sights or 
expectations, or the concentration of attention upon the 
sense in question, often serve to produce more or less 
marked sensations. The sight of a disgusting object may 
serve to produce nausea ; the belief that we are seriously 
injured may produce faintness or distress ; the expectation 
of being tickled may serve to produce unpleasant feeling, 
etc. It is often impossible to fix the attention upon any 
organ without observing a modification of its action. We 
shudder at the thought of a cut or bruise, and are nause- 
ated at the mention of sundry things. This fact has been 
made the basis of an explanation of various phenomena of 



SENSATION. 61 

mesmerism and spiritualism. Expectation and the power 
of a dominant idea are assumed to account for the phe- 
nomena. 

The local character of sensations remains to be noticed. 
In the developed mental life sensations are referred to 
some part of the body ; and this can take place only 
through some qualitative peculiarity of the sensations 
themselves. If all sensations were qualitatively alike, 
there would be no reason for referring them to different 
parts of the organism. This difference founds the local 
character of the sensations, and has been called their local 
sign. It is that through which their localization takes 
place, and without which it would be impossible. At the 
same time, it is often impossible to separate this element 
in consciousness ; it is known only by its results. 

In speaking of the factors to be considered we have rec- 
ognized only three, — (1.) the stimulus, (2.) the nervous 
action, and (3.) the conscious sensation. The suggestion, 
however, is made, that there may be something interme- 
diate between the nervous action and the conscious sen- 
sation. This has been variously named, as unconscious 
sensation, latent mental modification, sub-conscious mental 
state, etc. The first of these is a psychological contradic- 
tion, and is unconditionally to be rejected. The doctrine at 
this point is intelligible only as a claim that the immediate 
effect of the nervous action is to produce a series of affec- 
tions of the soul, which are not revealed in consciousness, 
but which may rise into consciousness, or which may be 
the stimulus to the soul to react with proper sensation. 
We must be careful, however, not to give these affections 
any of the names which imply consciousness. They can 
only be regarded as metaphysical states of the soul, and as 
having no more mental character than the metaphysical 
states of energy in an atom. There may well be uncon- 
scious activities of the soul in connection with the body. 



62 PSYCHOLOGY. 

If we ascribe to the soul any formative and directive in- 
fluence upon the body, we must admit that this is below 
consciousness. With respect to it the soul is simply 
a thing with power, not a conscious self. Our present 
inquiry concerns simply the question whether we need 
assume such unconscious states in the interaction which 
mediates sensation and perception. 

Various arguments are offered in favor of the view : — 

1. It is said to mediate the passage from the simplicity 
and community of nervous action, considered as some mode 
of motion, to the complete unlikeness of different classes of 
sensations. We might suppose that the primary effect in 
the soul consists in some simple form of affection corre- 
sponding to the simplicity of the nerve processes, and that 
sensations of different classes arise from varying combina- 
tions of this basal unit. 

This consideration has no value. The qualitative differ- 
ences of sensation are not explained by such a common 
unit. That which has led many to fancy that such a unit 
can be found is the fact that many of our sensations along 
with their qualitative content have sundry attendants of 
feeling, and these may show a certain likeness, yet without 
in any way showing a common factor in their peculiar con- 
tent. In any case, such simple, unconscious affections in 
the soul seem no better adapted to explain the conscious, 
qualitatively different sensations, than the nervous action 
itself. Somewhere the transition must be made from un- 
consciousness to consciousness, and from likeness to unlike- 
ness ; we should not delude ourselves with intermediaries, 
which only seem to help, and really hinder. 

2. A better argument lies in the following facts. The 
physical antecedents of sensation are often present, yet no 
sensation results. In the abstraction of study we lose sight 
of the external world. In the heat of passion or excite- 
ment we may receive great physical injury without knowing 



SENSATION. 63 

it. We must, however, suppose that the physical causes 
produced their proper mental effects ; and, as these did not 
rise into consciousness, they must have remained below it 
as a latent mental state. 

Most of the facts of this kind are exaggerated. Con- 
sciousness has many grades of intensity ; and no fact is 
brought out into clear consciousness without a certain 
amount of attention, and a focusing of our intellect upon 
it. In this respect consciousness is like the eye ; there is 
one spot of clear vision. The most of these so-called un- 
conscious experiences lie in this field of indefinite, or undis- 
criminated, consciousness, rather than in a sub-conscious 
realm. At the time, they have no interest for us, and are 
neglected in proportion to their indifference. 

Allowing, however, that no mental effect whatever can 
be observed, the conclusion rests on an assumption which 
may be questioned. In theoretical mechanics we assume 
that every force will have its full effect, as well in a crowd 
as when acting alone. If two forces, a and h, act upon an 
element, <?, successively or together, they will bring the ele- 
ment to the same point. How far this assumption is valid 
for all interaction is beyond knowledge. Yet the argu- 
ment in the present case rests on the assumption that an 
external stimulus must produce its full nervous effect, no 
matter what the condition of the nervous system, and that 
the nervous action, in turn, must produce its full mental 
effect, no matter what the state of mind. The first part of 
this assumption we know to be false in many cases. The 
same stimulus produces quite different results, according 
to the state of the nervous system. It is, therefore, quite 
conceivable that nerves reverberating with passion or emo- 
tion should not respond to a physical hurt with their accus- 
tomed reaction. 

The second part of the assumption is equally doubtful. 
The only results of nervous action upon the mind which 



64 



PSYCHOLOGY. 



we can estimate are the conscious results ; and these we 
know do vary with the state of mind, the interest, the pre- 
occupation, the amount of attention, etc. But since we 
must allow this fact somewhere along the line of mental 
effects, we may as well put it at the entrance to the mind, 
and say that the effect of nervous action is conditioned by 
the mental state. This is no more difficult a conception 
than the opposite, that the effect of nervous action is an 
invariable series of latent states, but that the effect of these 
states is conditioned by the conscious state. If attention 
is able to intensify a sensational state, intense preoccupa- 
tion might be able to prevent it altogether. The claim to 
remember events of which we were unconscious at the 
time, which is often made in connection with events imme- 
diately preceding, is either a case of the exaggeration men- 
tioned above, or is based on the echo of the nerve process 
which has not yet died away. 

3. The existence of sub-conscious states is further argued 
from facts like the following : — 

a. Any antecedent of sensation can be divided into an 
indefinite number of elements, either of extension or of in- 
tensity ; and the antecedent itself must be regarded as the 
sum of these components. Hence, each component must 
produce a certain effect, as otherwise the whole would have 
no effect. But we are not conscious of these component 
effects, but only of their resultant. Hence, the conscious 
state must be viewed as the outcome of other states below 
consciousness. 

b. Again, a single beat regularly produced appears as a 
succession of beats as long as the rate of recurrence falls 
below a certain standard. When the recurrence is more 
frequent, that which was perceived as a series of beats is 
heard as a fine-grained musical note, in which all hint of 
the components disappear ; and yet they are really there, 
but below consciousness. 



SENSATION. 65 

c. Again, white light is composed of several primary 
colors, each of which must have its full effect in conscious- 
ness, but all of which are fused into the one sensation of 
white light. 

We consider these arguments in order. 

1. Argument a rests on the assumption that each minut- 
est intensity of action in a sensory nerve must have a cor- 
respondingly minute mental effect. This is a questionable 
transference of a physical doctrine to an entirely different 
realm, and one which a consideration of the facts makes 
highly doubtful. The connection of the physical series 
with the mental series, viewed from the causal standpoint, 
is purely arbitrary. We can see no reason why one form 
of motion rather than another should be attended with 
sensation. It would be nothing more surprising if it were 
found that only certain intensities of nervous action are 
attended by sensation. In that case, nervous action, which 
falls below a certain degree of intensity, would not produce 
latent mental modifications, but would have no mental 
effect at all. If it be said that this view introduces an 
arbitrary break of continuity, the answer must be that no 
theory can escape such a break. Even the theory which 
regards thought as the inner face of nervous movements 
cannot tell why a given movement, say an oscillation in 
an elliptical orbit, should be attended by thought, while 
another, say a rectilinear vibration, should not be thus 
attended. 

2. Argument h rests on the assumption that the peculi- 
arities of the physical cause must reappear on the mental 
side. If the antecedent is a series of waves, the conse- 
quent also must be a series of shocks, and the conscious 
effect can only be the integral of those shocks. Here, 
again, is an extremely doubtful physical analogy. Consid- 
ering the unlikeness of the physical and mental series, and 
the arbitrary nature of their connection in general, it is 



66 PSYCHOLOGY. 

impossible to form any rational expectation as to what 
mental consequent shall attend a given physical ante- 
cedent. Whether it shall be as coarse-grained as the 
antecedent, or an absolute continuum, must be decided by 
observation of experience. Moreover, we know that sounds 
do not tend to fuse in consciousness, but remain distinct. 
This fact is the basis of music. Otherwise, the different 
tones would run together, and all relations of harmony 
would disappear. If, then, a given sensation appear as a 
strict continuum, with no hint of its discrete antecedents, 
we must reject the alleged discreteness of the sensation 
until the fact is demonstrated. Until then, we shall hold 
that one form of nervous action is attended by discontin- 
uous sensations, and another form by a continuous sen- 
sation ; and that, in passing from one to the other, the 
discontinuous do not remain and fuse into the continuous, 
but that the discontinuous vanish and the continuous takes 
their place. 

Otherwise expressed, suppose a, 5, c, d are a series of 
sensations which, under changed nervous conditions, are 
displaced by a new sensation, M. How is this to be inter- 
preted ? We may suppose that a, b, c, d are the mental 
accompaniment of the nervous state R, and that M is the 
mental accompaniment of the nervous state S. In that 
case there would be no passage of one mental state into 
another, but a displacement of one by another owing to a 
change in the external ground. This is the view above 
suggested ; and if the antecedent sensation were single, it 
would be accepted at once. When two different notes are 
sounded successively, it never occurs to us to regard the 
second as a transformation of the first ; we rather regard 
each as the mental effect appropriate to its physical ante- 
cedent. But when the antecedents are plural and there is 
no break of temporal continuity, then we think this view 
insufficient. 



SENSATION. 67 

Let us take, then, the other view, and see if it meets the 
purpose of its invention, a, 5, c, d are antecedent sensa- 
tions, whose conscious effect is M. If, however, they are 
truly latent mental states, M can he explained only by sup- 
posing a, 6, c, d so to act upon the mind as to cause it to 
produce in itself the conscious sensation 31. But in that 
case it is impossible to see what advantage a, b, c, d would 
have over the nervous changes themselves. These might 
have as their direct resultant M 9 as well as the series a, 6, 
Cy d ; and the series would be a useless intermediary. 

If, on the other hand, a, 6, c, d fuse into My this is only 
a figurative way of saying that a, 5, c, d exist no longer as 
either conscious or unconscious mental states, and that 31 
alone exists. An implicit hypostasis of mental states leads 
us to fancy that their substance must flow together, as in 
all fusion, to make the compound. If it be said that a, b, 
Cy d are My as the elements of a molecule are the molecule, 
this is another misapplied physical analogy, and supposes 
sensations to be things. Further, it is an attack upon con- 
sciousness, as it violently identifies what is given as distinct. 
It would declare, for example, that the coexistent sensations 
of the several colors of the spectrum are the sensation of 
white light. If, finally, it be said that an analysis of 31 
reveals a, 5, c, d as constituent elements, that only shows 
that they may exist out of definite consciousness, not that 
they exist out of all consciousness. In short, the simplicity 
or complexity of a sensation can never be decided by 
apriori assumptions concerning the way the physical ante- 
cedents must work, but only by analyzing the sensation as 
found in consciousness. This desire to trace the peculiari- 
ties of the physical cause into the mental effect has led to 
much absurd dictation as to what we may experience. 
Thus black is no color ; cold is a negation, etc. Psycho- 
logically, however, they are as positive as any other sen- 
sations. 



68 PSYCHOLOGY. 

3. Argument c overlooks entirely the fact that the com- 
position mentioned may take place in the nerves rather 
than in the mind. Indeed, the very experiment relied on 
proves this. When a disk on which the primary colors are 
painted in proper order is made to revolve rapidly, a sen- 
sation of whitish light is produced. When the disk is at 
rest, or is instantaneously illuminated by the electric spark, 
there is no blending of colors. This shows that the blend- 
ing does not take place in the mind, but in the nerves. No 
inspection of the color-spectrum reveals the slightest ten- 
dency towards fusion. But when the spectrum is in rapid 
motion the nerves receive a variety of impulses which, 
modifying one another, produce the resultant nervous state 
which founds the sensation of white light. We know that 
consciousness keeps sensations separate after they have 
once arisen ; and we know that nervous impulses can 
modify each other. There is no need, therefore, to assume 
a series of unconscious mental states to account for the 
composition. The known laws of nervous action suffice 
for that ; and, in addition, the mental state is not a com- 
pounded one. It is in itself as simple as any of its alleged 
components ; and just as each of them is the mental at- 
tendant of a certain nervous state, so it is the mental 
attendant of a certain other nervous state. 

This matter may be summed up as follows. The primal 
elements of the interaction between soul and body are 
unknown. It may be that the conscious sensation is the 
immediate reaction of the soul against the nervous action ; 
and it may be that the first effect of the nervous action is 
a change in the organic activity of the soul, and that the 
conscious sensation is a reaction against this change, or 
an expression of it. But while we do not deny that there 
may be such sub-conscious activities in connection with 
sensation, the facts thus far considered do not compel their 
assumption. If they are assumed, it must be on the basis 



SENSATION. 69 

of other facts, especially of forgetfulness and reproduction. 
These will be considered in their proper place. Hence we 
draw the conclusion that the assumption of intermediate 
affections between the nervous action and the felt sensation 
is unnecessary. It is based upon doubtful physical analo- 
gies and ambiguous facts, and, worst of all, it helps us to 
no solution whatever. But it is an obvious principle of 
method, that useless and unverifiable hypotheses must be 
avoided. Hence it cannot be the duty of the psychologist 
to prove that these states do not exist. It is rather the 
duty of the theorist to show that they do exist, and that 
they throw any light upon our problems. 

Closely akin to this question is another, concerning the 
simplicity of our sensations. For various reasons, partly 
speculative and partly partisan, the claim has been set up 
that none of our sensations are simple, but admit of reso- 
lution into component elements. In this way it was sought 
to bring the apparently incommensurable classes of sen- 
sation together, so as to exhibit them as multiples of 
some common unit. Here the speculative interest was 
active. The hope was also entertained, that by such 
a showing the resources of the associational psychology 
might be greatly increased. Here the partisan interest 
was apparent. 

The value of this view can best be determined by ana- 
lyzing it. We need to know, first of all, whether the aim 
is to analyze sensations into conscious, or unconscious com- 
ponents. In the latter case, we should have the view just 
discussed ; and then we should be quite at a loss to see 
how unconscious elements can be combined to form a con- 
scious sensation. One might as well aim to construct a 
sound out of a pair of silences. The only claim that could 
be made would be, that, when the mind performs uncon- 
sciously certain functions, its nature demands that it should 
perform a certain conscious function as a consequence. 



70 PSYCHOLOGY. 

But this would be far enough from a doctrine of composi- 
tion of sensations. 

If, however, the aim is to analyze our sensations into 
conscious elements, then, of course, the alleged elements 
must be pointed out. If a common element is alleged to 
exist, we need to know how out of this unit such apparently 
incommensurable classes are built up. We also need to 
know whether the elements are fused to form the com- 
pound, or whether the elements exist in the compound. If 
the fusion hypothesis be adopted, we must then decide what 
such fusion means, and how it would differ from the simple 
disappearance of the elementary sensations, and their re- 
placement by a new and different sensation. If we adopt 
the other view, we then have to say that a given sensation, 
say white light, is the sum of the sensations of comple- 
mentary colors. But this identification is impossible, and 
we are thrown back upon the view that one set of sensa- 
tions disappears and is replaced by a new sensation which 
contains no trace of its antecedents. In proof of the doc- 
trine of composition, it is said that a musical tone seems 
perfectly simple and yet is demonstrably compound. But 
here, too, we need to distinguish between the composite 
nature of the physical antecedents and the composition of 
the tone itself ; and we need also to distinguish between 
the fact that a simple tone may have several distinguish- 
able elements, and the claim that these elements first exist 
as distinct sensations and are then fused into an appar- 
ently simple tone. When these points are all considered, 
the analysis in question will seem neither so easy nor so 
promising. 

Let us state the question in a new form. Suppose that 
a, b, c, d are elementary sensations which give rise to 
M, a new sensation. M may coexist with «, b, c, d ; and 
then the latter would not be the components of M, but its 
conditions. Or a, 6, c, d may disappear from conscious- 



SENSATION. 71 

ness, and M may take their place. In this case we may 
say that a, 6, c, d have fused into M; but this would be 
only a figure of speech. Or we may say that a, 5, c, d are 
M; but this would be false. It only remains that we 
say that a, b, c, d are conditions against which the mind 
reacts by producing the new sensation M. This does not 
contain a, b, c, d, and is not made out of a, b, c, d, but 
arises under the conditions a, 6, c, d. But in order to this 
there must be a specific mental nature, IV, which contains 
the ground of the new reaction, M; otherwise there is no 
reason for going beyond the original a, b, e, d. 

Indeed, psychology has been haunted at this point by an 
implicit hypostasis of sensations. They have been tacitly 
viewed as self-identical things, or as mental atoms, which 
may enter into a great variety of mental molecules, thus 
producing new mental states and forms while at the same 
time they remain self-identical and never leave the plane 
of their own sensational nature. In this way the higher 
mental states have been exhibited as compounded from 
sensations, and there has been an appearance of striking 
and profound analysis. Meanwhile, the hypostasizing ten- 
dency of the mind plays its most transparent trick with 
us. In truth, sensations are not things, but functions ; and 
their union can only mean the replacement of one function 
by another. In that case the one function disappears with- 
out leaving any substantial remainder, and another func- 
tion takes its place, yet without being made out of any 
stuff left over from its predecessor. Indeed, even in the 
physical world the composition of forces does not involve 
a fusion of several forces into one, except in a figurative 
sense, or a continuance of the components in the resultant, 
but a replacement of the component forces by a new one 
distinct from them all, but dynamically equivalent. The 
chief art in analyzing our apparently simple sensations into 
simpler elements seems to consist in misapplying misun- 



72 PSYCHOLOGY. 

/ 
derstood physical analogies, together with sundry disjointed 
remarks on the short-comings of the introspective method. 
At all events, it does seem desirable to distinguish between 
the complexity of the physical cause and that of the men- 
tal effect, and between the succession of mental functions 
and their substantial identity. 

Each class of sensations, especially the intellectual ones, 
furnishes a subject for extended study. Such works as 
Helmholtz's " Sensations of Tone " and " Physiological Op- 
tics, " and Weber's " Studies of Touch," are examples of 
what may be done in this field. But such work, though 
highly interesting and valuable, reveals no new psycho- 
logical principles, but only specifies those with which we 
are already acquainted. 

We pass to a second factor in mental activity, the 
mechanism of reproduction. 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 73 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 

A large and influential school of psychologists hold 
that simple sensibility is the only original faculty of the 
mind. When sensations are produced, they enter into 
interaction with one another, and form various combi- 
nations according to certain laws. Given sensations and 
their laws of interaction, we may deduce all the so-called 
higher mental faculties as consequences of these simple 
facts and principles. This fact makes it desirable to con- 
sider the mechanism of reproduction at this point. The 
results reached will be valid for the reproduction of all 
mental states, as well as for sensations. 

Upon the cessation of nervous action, the corresponding 
sensation quickly vanishes, yet without being utterly lost. 
It is possible to retain or to reproduce the sensation in 
thought without the presence of the original stimulus. In 
some sense, then, past sensations, though out of conscious- 
ness, do still exist. According to some they exist as la- 
tent, or sub-conscious, mental modifications ; according to 
others, they exist as more or less permanent modifications 
of the brain. 

These reproduced sensations, which we may call repre- 
sentations, differ widely from their originals. The logical 
content is the same, but the sensibility is differently af- 
fected. Remembered pain or pleasure has the same sig- 
nificance for the intellect as real pain or pleasure ; but for 
the sensibility the difference is absolute. There is an air 
of reality about the original experience which the recollec- 
tion never has. The lightest actual rustle is more vivid 



74 PSYCHOLOGY. 

than the memory of the loudest noise. A slight pain dis- 
tresses more than the remembrance of agonies. This dif- 
ference is most easily explained by supposing that the 
recollection is only a mental act, while the original sen- 
sation had its external ground. The same distinction of 
vividness obtains between all actual and remembered men- 
tal states when any element of emotion or external percep- 
tion entered into the original experience. Where, however, 
the original experience was one of logical thinking simply, 
it can be repeated without loss of vividness. The antithesis 
of faint and vivid mental states, as expressing the distinc- 
tion between a remembered and an original experience, is, 
therefore, not absolute. 

Our mental states, sensational or otherwise, do not lie 
unrelated in the mind, but combine into groups and classes 
according to certain rules, so that they suggest or recall 
one another. A given experience, A, can recall another, 
B, like it, or which has been experienced in connection 
with it. The spoken, or written, word recalls the meaning ; 
an odor suggests the flower, etc. In this way simple rep- 
resentations are combined into compound representations ; 
and any element of the compound tends to recall the whole. 
Our notions of sense-objects are all compound representa- 
tions ; yet so swift and subtle is the work of association 
that the fact is quite overlooked. A given sense is shut up 
to a single form of sensation. Vision gives us only per- 
cepts of color. Touch gives us only percepts of hardness, 
resistance, etc. Smell can give nothing but odor. There 
was a point in our mental life when these several percepts 
were not united; now they are so firmly united that we 
can hardly believe that they were ever separate. In like 
manner, the spoken or written word suggests the meaning 
so surely and involuntarily, that we seem to hear and 
see the very thought itself. If there were not many lan- 
guages, it would doubtless be contended that there is a 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 75 

pre-established harmony between the sound and the sense. 
Such union we call an association. It rests upon no 
rational connection. There is nothing in any one of the 
senses which implies that the other senses must exist. 
There is nothing in a given sound which fits it to express 
only a certain idea. The connection is purely one of fact. 
The elements have been associated in experience, and tend 
on that account to recall one another. Hence the senses 
seem to act vicariously. In perception any sense seems 
to give us the entire thing. We see the color, or smell 
the odor, or even hear the name ; and the whole thing 
seems to stand before us. The component elements have 
been welded into a group, and thenceforth they belong 
together. This fact is called the association of ideas, — 
where ideas stand for any mental state whatever. We 
postpone further description of the fact, and pass to con- 
sider the theories for its explanation. 

Two classes of theories exist. One finds the mechanism 
of reproduction in the organism, especially in the brain ; 
the other finds it in the mind itself. And since the repro- 
duction and association of ideas are mental facts, in most 
cases without any assignable physical stimulus, it is plain 
that the mental explanation must have precedence of the 
physical, unless it be found untenable. Psychology must 
not have recourse to physiology until its own resources fail. 
We begin, then, with the mental theory of reproduction. 

Our ideas come and go in consciousness without the 
presence of the original stimulus, and acco ding to laws 
of their own. To explain this fact, a highly complex 
mental mythology has been invented. In its coarser forms 
the mythological character is too evident to need more than 
mention ; for example, that consciousness has a certain 
size, and that hence many ideas cannot find room in it, as 
if they themselves were extended, and impenetrable, and 
crowded one another out, — all this is too plainly a figure 



76 PSYCHOLOGY. 

of speech to need examination. The same is true for the 
expressions which present consciousness as a kind of light, 
which, falling upon ideas, enables the mind to see them, 
but which, when spread over many ideas, grows less and 
less intense, and finally leaves outlying ideas in a kind of 
outer darkness. Such notions arise from the effort of the 
imagination to picture a process which is essentially un- 
picturable. The most distinguished effort toward a theory 
of reproduction is that of Herbart. 

According to Herbart, a simple sensation is a reaction of 
the soul against external action, and is called by him an 
act of self-preservation. Such a mental function is in its 
nature indestructible ; and if it were not interfered with, 
it would last forever ; that is, it is subject to the law of 
inertia. But many such functions exist ; and these, because 
of the unity of the soul, must enter into interaction. They 
are then conceived as endowed with forces whereby they 
act upon one another, and re-enforce or repress one another. 
Consciousness is next furnished with a " threshold," which 
represents the intensity below which an idea is lost to con- 
sciousness. When the intensity of the function is above 
the threshold, the idea is in consciousness ; when below, 
the idea is out of consciousness. This interaction of the 
ideas results in their passing back and forth across the 
threshold ; that is, in and out of consciousness. In this 
way, both the passage of ideas from consciousness and 
their return are explained by the same process. The forces 
themselves consist in the opposition of the ideas, and in 
their intensity. 

This view is constructed entirely on the analogy of 
physical mechanics, and more especially on the analogy 
of molecular mechanics. The representations, or persist- 
ent sensations, are regarded as the units of the mental 
life, and by their interaction they are supposed to explain 
or produce all the higher forms of the mental life. We 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 77 

may call it, then, a system of mental mechanics, in the 
strict sense of the term. The theory has the gravest diffi- 
culties, as follows. 

1. The forces by which the ideas are said to act upon 
one another are imaginary or unintelligible. It is impossi- 
ble to understand either the opposition or the intensity of 
ideas in such a way as to make them adequate to the 
demands made upon them. Both of these terms may be 
applied to the ideas as having a certain meaning, or to the 
ideas as mental acts. The former would be their logical, 
the second their psychological interpretation. In neither 
of these senses can they be made to do what they are sup- 
posed to accomplish. 

Opposition considered as the logical relation of the con- 
tents of ideas is no psychological force ; and ideas do not 
affect each other according to such a law. The most 
diverse ideas logically considered show no psychological 
opposition ; and the most similar show no tendency to 
coalesce. The colors of the spectrum remain separate, 
and the sounds of a chorus also. The most contradictory 
ideas can be conceived with the utmost ease, provided we 
do not attempt to identify them in a judgment. Sour 
and sweet, round and square, straight and crooked, far 
and near, are ideas which can coexist in consciousness in 
the utmost psychological amity, though logically hostile. 
Hence, logical opposition counts for nothing as a moving 
force among mental states. 

The opposition, then, must be psychological ; but this is 
an idea hard to understand. Thoughts as mental acts have 
none of the qualities which belong to their logical contents ; 
for example, the thought of the circle is not round, nor 
is that of sugar sweet. There is no assignable opposition 
between the activity which thinks bitter and that which 
thinks sweet. The only meaning to opposition seems to be 
the general fact, that the mind cannot perform many func- 



78 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tions or attend to many objects at once, and hence the 
performance of one function or attention to one group of 
objects excludes the performance of other functions or 
attention to other objects. But this fact also expresses 
no moving force among the ideas themselves, and also 
no relation of the ideas to one another. The very utmost 
that sucli opposition among ideas would accomplish, would 
be the exclusion of many ideas from consciousness ; it 
would in no way provide for their return. 

Intensity remains to be considered ; and this is even 
a darker notion than opposition. "When speaking of sen- 
sations, the meaning of intensity is plain. It refers to the 
amount of disturbance of our inner state. In case of pains 
more or less intense, the amount of inner disturbance is 
more or less. But intensity has no clear meaning when 
applied to representations, or to ideas of any kind. The 
intensity of the sensations themselves disappears entirely 
from the representations. There is nothing more intense 
in the idea of a loud noise than in the idea of a faint 
one. Ideas of intensity are possible, but intense ideas 
are meaningless. 

Intensity does not apply to the content; it is equally 
inapplicable to the mental act. Suppose we conceive a 
given object, A, there is no meaning to the proposition to 
conceive A with double intensity. If the object were a 
sensation, we should find that such an attempt resulted, 
not in representing A with double intensity, but rather in 
representing 2 A. Thus, in case of a noise, the attempt 
to remember a noise more intensely would really result in 
recalling a louder noise. In short, ideas do not vary in 
intensity at all, but rather in clearness or distinctness. 
Thus a triangle may be conceived as three-sided, and then 
the matter is at an end. What the intense representation 
of a triangle might be, as distinct from a clear one, is 
past all finding out. We can, indeed, have a more or less 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 79 

extensive knowledge about a triangle, but a more or less 
intense knowledge is nothing. 

Moreover, the clearness has no meaning when applied 
to the simple representations with which Herbart works. 
Thus, an unclear representation of blue would always 
mean a representation of unclear blue, that is, a blue 
bordering on some other color. Hence the clearness of 
a simple representation also admits of no degrees. When 
we fancy that we are representing a simple quality with 
varying degrees of clearness, we are really representing 
different degrees of the quality itself. As for the clearness 
of our complex ideas, we shall find hereafter that this is no 
property of the ideas themselves as mental states, but ex- 
ists only in and through the act of apprehension. It is the 
comprehension which is clear, not the idea. 

We conclude, then, that neither opposition nor intensity, 
in whatever sense they are taken, can be viewed as moving 
forces among mental states. Indeed, if we are to find such 
a force anywhere, it must be sought in a realm where the 
Herbartian is forbidden to find it. Feeling and interest 
are the great sources of the power of an idea over the 
current of thought. That line of thought in which we 
are interested draws all others away and wins the mind 
to itself. But this interest is no quality of the ideas, but 
is a certain value which the mind attaches to the ideas for 
the time being. In general, it is highly changeable, varying 
with the health, the general state of feeling, the time of 
life, and a great variety of obscure circumstances besides. 

The general ambiguity of the theory deserves further 
notice. We may understand by idea either its logical con- 
tent, or the mental activity by which it exists. But we 
cannot posit forces in the ideas in the former sense, as that 
would make them things. We must then take the ideas in 
the latter sense, and regard their interaction as taking- 
place among a series of psychical functions, rather than 



80 PSYCHOLOGY. 

among logical conceptions. The functions a, 5, c, d pro- 
duce the conscious representations A, B, C, D; but the 
interaction is only among a, b, c, d. We have just seen 
that the forces which Herbart attributes to the ideas are 
unmanageable in either case. Opposition has meaning only 
for A, B, C, B ; and intensity has no meaning. Intensity, 
again, has meaning only for a, b, c, d ; and opposition has 
no meaning. Nor is any mechanical representation of the 
relations of a, b, c, d possible. First, there is no assigna- 
ble way of keeping them separate. When several impulses, 
x, y, 2, are communicated to the same body, M, they unite 
in a common resultant, B, in which x, y, and z no longer 
exist. If we should suppose them to persist as separate 
impulses, and should next endow them with attractions and 
repulsions for one another, we should have precisely the 
problem in hand. And after we have thus isolated a, b, 
c, d, and have endowed them with utterly unrepresentable 
forces, we have next to consider whether we have not made 
them into things, and have not cancelled the unity of the 
mental subject itself. We are no better off if we regard 
them, not as actual functions, but only as tendencies to per- 
form functions ; for it is equally impossible to explain the 
separateness of the tendencies and the possibility of their 
interaction. In short, there can be no mechanical repre- 
sentation without the spatial separation and substantial 
nature of the interacting elements. Where these are lack- 
ing, mechanical terms are simply figures of speech. 

In addition, it might be pointed out that, if the theory 
were true, the movement of our ideas would be different 
from what it is, both in their coming and their going. 
Our ideas ought to vanish through an indefinite series of 
degrees of faintness, all the way from the summit of con- 
sciousness down to the threshold ; and they ought to recur 
strictly in their ancient form. But there is no need to 
dwell on this point. 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 81 

It is easy to see how such a view arises. There are 
movement and connection among our ideas, and we seek 
to explain the facts. When several ideas are given, others 
are excluded ; or when several ideas have been conjoined 
in experience, thereafter the recurrence of any one often 
leads to the recurrence of the rest. For the explanation 
of these facts, promising physical analogies abound. Let 
us endow the ideas with various attractive and repulsive 
forces ; let us speak freely of their affinities and opposi- 
tions ; and the problem is solved. With this outfit we can 
see the ideas beginning to interact, so as to re-enforce or 
repress one another. They pass back and forth across the 
threshold ; simple ideas may well combine into complex 
ideas, just as atoms form molecules ; and the evolution of 
mental heterogeneity from mental homogeneity is well 
under way. Few questions longer present any difficulty. 
Ideas pass out of consciousness, because opposing ideas 
drive them across the threshold. They return to conscious- 
ness because of a re-enforcement of energy on their own 
side, or because of a diminishing energy on the side of 
their opponents. Association is accounted for by affinity. 
A and B, in the group A B, are held together by mutual 
attraction, and hence it is perfectly clear why B should 
always follow the appearance of A. 

But the joy of new insight must not prevent us from 
asking whether our theory is to be taken in earnest, or 
only as a figurative representation of an unpicturable fact. 
But we cannot seriously regard our theory as a matter of 
fact, for the following reasons : — 

1. If we mean by ideas their logical content, we must 
make them things ; we must assume that they can exist 
out of consciousness ; and we must view reproduction as a 
literal resurrection of the old experience. 

2. If we mean by ideas the psychical functions which 
result in conscious states, we are totally unable to name or 

6 



82 PSYCHOLOGY. 

define, or in any way represent, the forces which play 
among them. We are equally unable to adjust the theory 
to experience, except in the vaguest way ; and then only 
because we have constructed it with reference to experi- 
ence. The deduction only draws out what we put in. 

It is plain from the foregoing that our mechanical con- 
structions of the reproductive process are failures. All 
that we do is to apply the terminology of mechanics and 
dynamics to the observed movements of the ideas, without 
even the possibility of understanding our own terms in 
their special applications. The mechanical terms lead us 
to fancy that we have established a mental dynamics, 
whereas we have only a series of unintelligible metaphors. 
If we resolutely eschew these, we are left simply with the 
fact of movement and connection among our ideas. This 
fact must, indeed, have its sufficient ground and explana- 
tion ; but it does not admit of a mechanical construction 
after the manner of molecular dynamics. 

The English associationalists have never accepted the 
Herbartian ontology ; and they have also never had any 
clear conception of their own position. They waver between 
regarding the association of ideas as an ultimate fact, and 
viewing the relations of contiguity, similarity, etc. as forces 
of mental cohesion and movement. In the latter case all 
the difficulties of the Herbartian theory reappear. This 
uncertainty has led the later writers of this school largely 
to adopt the physiological explanation. 

The dark unpicturability of the reproductive process on 
the psychological side, the near approach to absurdity 
involved in the doctrine of unconscious ideas, and an un- 
willingness to leave reproduction unexplained, have led to 
an attempt to find the ground of reproduction in the brain 
rather than in the mind itself. If we may suppose each of 
our ideas to have some physical representative, we seem 
to escape many of the difficulties mentioned. We need 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 83 

no longer to speak of unconscious ideas, for that which 
represents the ideas when out of consciousness is not an 
unimaginable mental function, but a distinct physical repre- 
sentative. For the movement and coherence of our ideas, 
also, we need not assume any unconstruable forces among 
the ideas, as the dynamic relations among their physical 
representatives dispense with them altogether. Now all 
is clear again. What appears subjectively as the associa- 
tion of ideas is objectively a dynamic relation of physical 
quantities. This theory seems so promising that we can- 
not but be filled with hope. Indeed, we may even expect 
to see thought itself going on apart from consciousness, 
as the outcome of this " unconscious cerebration." 

This theory may be held in a purely materialistic sense, 
and indeed it has been largely supported by materialistic 
assumptions. In this sense the theory is repudiated in 
advance. But it may also be held in connection with a 
spiritual conception of the soul. Its most general assump- 
tion is, that every mental state, of whatever kind, makes 
some relatively permanent impression on the brain, which 
thus becomes a register of experience. This impression 
is variously conceived, as a tendency, or as special forms 
of movement, or as special groupings of the brain-cells. 
The result is, that the brain tends to repeat its past forms 
of activity, thus reproducing the past mental experience. 
This is the basis of reproduction. 

The general dependence of reproduction upon the brain 
may be conceived in two ways. First, we may suppose 
that the brain conditions an activity of the mind which it 
does not itself produce. Second, we may suppose that the 
recurrence in experience of ideas due to a re-excitation of 
their physical ground is the sum of reproduction. The 
former view leaves reproduction a psychical process ; the 
latter makes it a physiological one. This is the view in 
question. 



84 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Two capital difficulties must be noticed in every such 
theory: — 

1. It provides for no distinction between original and 
recalled experience. The same parts are supposed to be 
active in memory which were concerned in the original 
experience, and withal in the same way. Hence a memory 
ought to appear as a faint perception, and not as a repro- 
duction of something before experienced. The memory 
of a visual object ought to be a seeing of that object ; and 
that not merely with the mind's eye, but with the bodily 
eye as well. The theory provides only for faint percep- 
tions and vivid perceptions, but not for the distinction 
between things remembered and things perceived. 

2. The theory makes no provision for the most essential 
element of reproduction, — memory or recognition. At 
the very best, it would only provide for the recurrence of 
similar experiences, but not for their recognition. Repe- 
tition, however, is not memory. Re-experience is not 
recognition. If, then, the brain were a storehouse of ideas, 
and should continually present them before the mind, 
there would be nothing to suggest to the mind the fact of 
reproduction, unless the mind had an independent power 
of recognition in itself. Just as a person with a very 
feeble memory might read the same book over and over 
again without a suspicion of the repetition, so the brain- 
register alone could never bring us to a knowledge of the 
past unless the mind had in itself an independent power 
of memory. The re-presentation of an external object is 
plainly not identical with a memory of that object ; and it 
might conceivably take place forever without awakening 
the latter. But the ideas supposed to be re-presented by 
the brain-register are just as external to memory. The re- 
currence of experience is not the experience of recurrence. 
The latter is possible only to the mind itself, and can never 
be done for it by anything beyond itself. The memo- 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 85 

randum may help the mind to recall ; but the recollection 
must at last be the act of the mind itself. On this theory 
the brain would be the organ of memory in the same sense 
that a memorandum-book is an organ of memory. 

To this it may be objected that a reproduced experience 
will always have certain marks which forbid its identifica- 
tion with the present experience, and that, therefore, we 
must locate it in the past as a previous experience. But 
this fails to meet the case. Without a self -verifying power 
of memory to some extent, this distinction of present and 
past experience would never arise, but only a division of 
experience into vivid and faint states. Without a direct 
knowledge of the past, these faint states cannot be related 
to the past, but would remain a special form of present 
experience. Of course all these states, vivid and faint 
alike, are present states. Left to themselves there is no 
hint of reproduction in them. We should hardly descend 
to the mythological fancy that each one is labelled with its 
date ; and if we did, we should next need some mind to read 
the dates and arrange the states accordingly. 

It appears, then, that no cerebral theory of reproduction 
can get on without a separate power of reproduction in the 
mind itself. It also appears, that the reproduction possible 
to the cerebral theory becomes proper mental reproduction 
only through the action of the mind itself. The former is 
so far from explaining the latter, that it becomes known 
only through the latter. But as mental reproduction is 
the fact to be explained, and as cerebral reproduction is 
only an hypothesis for its explanation, and fails withal to 
meet the purpose of its invention, it is plain that the latter 
has no further reason for existence. Physiology means 
well, and is doubtless a most useful and estimable science ; 
but in this case psychology must decline its assistance, of 
course with thanks for its good intentions. 

It is a disappointment, and even a grief, to find this 



86 PSYCHOLOGY. 

promising theory performing so little. The difficulties 
dwelt upon are fatal, even if the cerebral theories were 
complete in all other respects ; which is far enough from 
being the case. But we postpone consideration of their 
inner mechanism to the Appendix, and draw here only the 
conclusion that, whatever the significance of the brain for 
memory may be, it does not consist in doing the mind's 
remembering. This is one of the elegant conceptions for 
which psychology is indebted to the " objective method." 
The brain is the organ of memory in the same sense that 
it is the organ of thought. It neither thinks nor remem- 
bers; and still less does it furnish the mind with ready- 
made thoughts and recollections. It simply supplies the 
conditions of mental activity in these directions, without 
being in any way able to produce it. 

Both the physical and the mental theories of reproduc- 
tion fail to give us any insight into the facts. Indeed, this 
entire department of psychology has been devastated by 
rhetoric ; and our theories are never more than descrip- 
tions of the fact, or inferences from our own figures of 
speech. We recall the past, we say ; and forthwith we 
judge that it must have been somewhere in the mind ; how 
else could it be recalled? We have knowledge of many 
things of which we are not always conscious ; as mathe- 
matics, science, languages, etc. This knowledge is said to 
be in the mind, and, when it is not in consciousness, where 
can it be but below consciousness ? Then, if rhetorically 
inclined, we speak of memory's vast halls, dim chambers, 
niches where the past is stored, etc. If we are philo- 
sophical, and desire accuracy, we speak of latent, or sub- 
conscious, mental states as the forms in which this 
knowledge and experience in general exist. Then it is 
the easiest thing in the world to enrich and advance psy- 
chology by the invention of faculties. The retention of 
experience certainly implies a retentive faculty. Its con- 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 87 

serration, also, is impossible without a conservative faculty. 
Its reproduction, without doubt, demands a reproductive 
faculty. Its recognition, of course, calls for a recognizing 
faculty ; and the location of an event in the temporal series 
of our experience must be due to a locating faculty. It 
would not be difficult to invent several more faculties if the 
interests of the science called for them. But all these 
faculties are plainly abstractions from the fact to be ex- 
plained, and do not advance our knowledge in the least. 
Nor are we any better off when we appeal to mechanical 
physics. The facts have no physical analogue ; and the 
application of physical analogies only misleads us by an 
appearance of knowledge, while they really prevent us from 
perceiving the true nature of the facts. All that is pos- 
sible, therefore, is to seek some expression for the facts 
which shall give them without distortion, and which shall 
not transcend the facts themselves. We venture the fol- 
lowing statements : — 

1. Thoughts and mental states in general are not things, 
but mental acts or functions. As such, they exist only in 
and through the activity of the soul ; and when the soul's 
activity is directed elsewhere, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
they cease to exist anywhere, either in consciousness or out 
of it. This explains the loss of ideas from consciousness. 

2. The mind is not an extended substance, with various 
strata in which the marks of its ancient life remain, or on 
which its past is written. Except in a figurative sense the 
past is not in the mind at all. The fact is this. The soul, 
in distinction from what we assume for the physical ele- 
ments, is not indifferent to its past, but carries that past 
with it, not at all in the form of latent modifications, but 
solely in the power to reproduce that past in consciousness 
and to know it as past. Our possession of a knowledge 
of which we are not conscious means only that we can 
reproduce that knowledge upon occasion. In no other 



88 PSYCHOLOGY. 

sense is past experience latent in us. This power of re- 
production and recognition admits of no deduction, and 
has no analogue elsewhere. All attempts to tell how it is 
possible overlook the essential features of the fact, while 
the various faculties invented for its explanation are ab- 
stractions from the fact itself. 

3. When two or more elements have been joined in a 
common experience, the recurrence of any of these ele- 
ments often leads to the recurrence of the whole experi- 
ence. Otherwise expressed, when the mind has performed 
a given function, it may be stimulated thereafter to renew 
that function by the recurrence in experience of one 
or more of the factors which entered into the original 
function. 

4. Reproduction in no way brings back the old fact. 
The particular experience as a mental fact vanishes for- 
ever. What remains is the ability to perform anew the 
ancient function, thus producing a new experience of simi- 
lar content to the old. In reproduction the mind does not 
bring from the depths of unconsciousness a series of par- 
ticular experiences, which have lain there since their first 
occurrence ; but it is stimulated to reperform the original 
function, thus producing a totally or partially identical 
content. How the mind can do this we do not pretend to 
know. We have to be content with knowing that it does 
it, although we cannot construct the process. 

In reproduction a distinction is made between the reviva- 
bility of an experience and its actual revival. This depends 
upon the fact that certain experiences are more easily and 
certainly recalled than certain others ; and the former are 
said to be more revivable than the latter. Understanding 
revivability in this sense, we may study its conditions. 

Rcvivability is often said to depend on the depth of the 
original impression; but this is only a figure of speech 
which leads us round in a circle, for there is no way of 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 89 

measuring the depth of the impression except by the re- 
vivability itself. 

Revivability varies with several factors : — 

1. Attention and discrimination in the original experi- 
ence are important elements. In general, we remember 
that to which we attend with more certainty than that to 
which we give no attention. 

2. Interest also is equally important. We retain a much 
firmer hold of that in which we were interested, than of 
that to which we were indifferent. Interest works directly 
as an emotional element, and indirectly by intensifying our 
attention. 

3. Repetition increases revivability. Frequent forms of 
activity tend to acquire the ease of habit. 

4. Revivability in general diminishes with time. The 
great bulk of events fades out with the years. 

Exceptions are not lacking to most of these rules ; but 
their general truth is unquestionable. 

The question is often raised, whether anything is ever 
forgotten. This can only mean, Does any experience ever 
become absolutely unrevivable ? Most events of life, as 
Locke says, are laid in fading colors, and very quickly fade 
out beyond any present power of restoration. On the other 
hand, it is certain that events long forgotten have been re- 
called with the utmost freshness in some crisis of life, in 
some access of disease, or in some emotional exaltation. 
This recall, too, has extended not merely to important 
matters, but to insignificant details. Such facts at least 
prove a possibility. 

But revivability is not revival, but only the possibility 
thereof. How does the possible revival become actual ? 
The general answer has already been given, that revival 
takes place through the occurrence in present experience 
of some factor whose content is similar to that of some 
factor of the recalled experience. 



90 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The current answer to this question is given in the so- 
called laws of association. Of these it is not always clear 
whether they are supposed to be descriptions or explana- 
tions of the reproductive process. In truth, they can never 
be anything more than descriptions. These laws being 
only classifications of experience, there is room for some- 
what of arbitrariness in fixing a standard of classification. 
Accordingly, it often happens that writers redistribute the 
facts according to some new rule, with the result that new 
laws are discovered, and psychology is seen to be a pro- 
gressive science. 

The laws most commonly given are these : (1.) conti- 
guity in space and time, which is sometimes reduced to con- 
tiguity in time ; (2.) cause and effect ; and (3.) likeness and 
contrariety, or similarity and contrast. That is, (1.) things 
which we have found together in space and time often re- 
call one another ; (2.) the cause recalls its effect, and con- 
versely ; and (3.) ideas often recall others like them, and 
sometimes contrasted ideas. In addition, the means sug- 
gests the end, and the end the means ; the sign suggests 
the thing, and the thing the sign. Such a series might be 
continued indefinitely, thus producing the appearance of 
fine psychological observation. Concerning contiguity and 
similarity there is much debate whether one underlies the 
other, or whether both are equally fundamental. Among 
those who regard only one as primary, there is no agree- 
ment as to which shall be put first. 

Many philosophers have sought to reduce all these laws 
to one, which has been called the law of redintegration. 
This formidable term means, that, when any part of a pre- 
vious state recurs in experience, the mind tends to com- 
plete, and thus to restore, the past experience. Some of 
the formulations of this law are unfortunate, and would re- 
strict it to the reproduction of objects which had previously 
been joined in thought or experience. On this ground, it 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 91 

has been denied that this law applies to association by 
similarity ; as in cases of resemblance things suggest one 
another which have never been united in any previous ex- 
perience. In its tenable form this law reduces to the state- 
ment already made, that the mind can be stimulated to 
perform anew any past function by the recurrence in expe- 
rience of one or more of the factors which entered into 
that function. This principle, which may or may not be 
called redintegration, contains, we conceive, all the so- 
called laws of association. 

All the laws except that of resemblance appear at once 
as consequences of this formula. Contiguity in space and 
time has no effect, except as things and events thus con- 
tiguous are apt to be joined in a common experience. 
The contiguity is no factor except in an indirect way. If 
things or events had not been together, they would not 
have been known together, and hence would not have 
been recalled together. The same considerations apply 
to suggestions of cause and effect, means and ends, etc. 
Our actual life compels us to connect these ideas very 
often ; and hence, when one element is given, the other is 
likely to recur. Suggestion by contrast, when it does occur, 
comes under the same head. There are sundry contrasts 
which have a special value for our experience, and hence 
are frequently joined in thought. Beyond these cases the 
suggestion by contrast is a pure fiction. 

There is, however, another conception of contiguity, 
according to which the sensations themselves are con- 
tiguous, and cohere accordingly. This is another phase of 
the mythology which has long infested this region. Sensa- 
tions have no spatial contiguity, as if they existed side 
by side and cohered at their surfaces. Nor can we make 
any use of their temporal contiguity, unless we mean to 
affirm a coherence of particular experiences, so that the re- 
produced experience is the veritable old one brought back 



92 PSYCHOLOGY. 

to life. And even such a myth would be useless ; for the 
present particular experience is here for the first time, and 
has never been contiguous to anything. How, then, can 
contiguity act, when there has been no contiguity ? It 
would tend to clearness, and thus to progress, if some one 
would bethink himself to define contiguity, and to explain 
what it is that has been contiguous. Quite unconsciously, 
it would seem, the associationalist operates with universals, 
and not with particular experiences. 

Similarity or resemblance remains to be considered. It 
is not easy to know how this law is to be understood. 
If we take it literally, it seems to find scanty support in 
experience. As a rale, tones do not suggest tones, nor 
colors colors, but rather other and diverse elements with 
which they have previously been joined. Taking the law 
in literal strictness, it could never take us outside of the 
ideas to which the suggesting element belongs. No ele- 
ment could transcend its class. Thus, a sweet taste might 
suggest another sweet taste, but it could not by resem- 
blance suggest a piece of sugar, or the fruit or any other 
circumstance connected with it. For this we should have 
to fall back upon our principle. 

In general, this doctrine of association by resemblance 
is extremely obscure. To begin with, it seems absurd to 
talk of an association between elements which have never 
been joined in experience, and yet it is precisely such asso- 
ciations which this doctrine contemplates. The present 
experience, a, which I now have for the first time, suggests 
another, b, had long ago. But a and b have never been 
joined, and hence never associated. It is, then, a strange 
use of language to speak of them as associated. Let us 
escape this paradox by saying that a suggests b. Still the 
fact is as dark as ever. Why does the mind go from a to 
a similar idea, b ? It cannot be because they seem like to 
the mind; for that would suppose the transit made, and 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 93 

both objects to be already in thought. The likeness so far 
as active in suggestion is unperceived; for by the time it 
is perceived it has done its work. But how can unperceived 
likeness be a ground of suggestion ? 

The answer is found in the principle we have proposed. 
Likeness as such becomes a ground of suggestion only as 
the present experience, A b e D, contains elements b c, com- 
mon to another experience, 31 be JY. This common element, 
b e, stimulates the mind, under favorable circumstances, to 
fill out the allied form M be N. Sometimes b e is entirely 
inefficient, and then there is no suggestion. Sometimes it 
stimulates the mind to perform the function Mbe iV, but 
with only partial success. Then we have the peculiar ex- 
perience of being reminded of something, we cannot say 
what. Sometimes the function is fully performed, and then 
the object M b c N is fully recalled, and we ascribe the result 
to its likeness to A b c D. 

To understand this result, we must remember that all 
our experiences are compound, or have several distinguish- 
able elements ; for example, a picture may be distinguished 
by its subject, the treatment, the grouping, the drawing, the 
coloring, the frame, the hanging, and even by the location ; 
and association or suggestion may take place through any 
one of these elements. Hence we may put an object, A, 
equal to its elements, abede; and another object, B, may be 
put equal to its elements ablm r. If then we have A before 
us, and our attention be concentrated upon it, there will 
be no suggestion. In other cases the factor ab, common 
to both A and B, may stimulate the mind to complete the 
function ablmr. If this succeeds, B will be recalled or 
suggested by virtue of the likeness of A to B, that is, 
because of the common factor a b. If it does not succeed 
to tho extent of completely reproducing the function, then 
we say that A reminds us of something, we cannot say 
what. 



94 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Instead, then, of saying that association by resemblance 
will not come under our principle, we must rather say that 
there seems to be no way of bringing it under any other. 
At all events, we can hardly adopt the fiction that simi- 
larity is a real force of attraction; although many psy- 
chologists have not scrupled to speak of the " attraction 
of similars." 

Our conclusion, then, is that ideas have no attractive or 
repulsive forces among themselves whereby they move and 
separate or unite, but that all their movements, so far as 
they are not due to volition, result from the mental ten- 
dency to reproduce past forms of activity when some factor 
of those forms is given. We find that all the laws of asso- 
ciation are results of this principle, and it includes many 
facts of association besides. Thus we find that simple 
experiences alone have little power of suggestion. Simple 
colors or sounds suggest little, except as parts of a total 
experience into which they may have entered. In them- 
selves they are so simple as to involve little mental activity, 
and hence the tendency to repeat it has little occasion to 
manifest itself. Yery different is it with parts of a whole. 
Hence the recurrence of any of the factors tends to stimu- 
late the mind to reconstruct the whole. An odor suggests 
the form and color of the flower to which it belongs ; and 
all together may suggest places where the flower grows, 
and many other circumstances connected with it. So a 
tone may suggest a melody, and then its place therein, and 
then the circumstances under which it was heard, or those 
who used to sing it, etc. So the sound of a word may 
suggest its meaning, or its printed or written form, or the 
image of the thing meant, etc. In all these cases the 
various elements have been combined in previous experi- 
ences ; and the more deliberate and conscious the relating 
of the several parts in the original experience, the more 
certainly does the mind reproduce them in connection. 



THE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 95 

Nor does the mind merely re-relate them ; it relates them 
in the same manner as before. A succession of events is 
more easily reproduced in their original order, since that 
is the form of the original function. The alphabet, a mel- 
ody, a series of any kind, can hardly be reprodued at all 
apart from the original order. 

If a given idea had only a single association, it might be 
easy to trace the course of suggestion, and even to predict 
it. In fact, however, in our developed experience the same 
element, a, has entered into combination with a great many 
others, b, c, d, e, etc. This complicates the problem beyond 
all calculation. We have the groups abe, ade, afg, etc., 
indefinitely. Yet the recurrence of a does not recall all of 
these groups, but rather some one to the exclusion of the 
others. This special direction is due to special circum- 
stances. A leading one is the predominant interest of the 
mind at the time. Suggestions are generally relevant to 
the matter in hand when the mind is seriously engaged 
upon any subject. In general, too, the greater the similar- 
ity, the more probable the suggestion ; as then the mental 
activity in both cases approaches nearer identity, and the 
stimulus to reproduction becomes stronger. That is, two 
objects, abed and aefg, would be less likely to suggest each 
other than two other objects, abed and, abef, as the latter 
functions approach nearer identity than the former. Other 
grounds of direction are found in the tone and type of feel- 
ing, and also in our physical condition. One of the most 
marked defects of the common expositions of the doctrine 
of association is that they overlook the profound signifi- 
cance of the feelings and emotions for the association of 
ideas, whereas ideas are quite as often suggested by feelings 
as by ideas, and the general direction of association is espe- 
cially due to the emotional state. But all these factors, 
the interest, the attention, the general current of thought 
and type of feeling, are incessantly changing. The mental 



96 PSYCHOLOGY. 

mechanism, if there be one, not only incessantly produces 
new combinations, but the elements and forces themselves 
are constantly changing. The result is, that variegated 
play of ideas which varies from an orderly suggestion of 
relevant thoughts to the apparently hap-hazard and lawless 
mental drift of revery and dream. 

It is a question whether the course of suggestion can 
always be traced, or whether the connecting links are some- 
times out of sight. There is general agreement that the 
connecting links exist, but doubt exists as to the possibility 
of finding them. Experience, indeed, often presents us 
with ideas which seem to have no connection with our 
previous mental state. They appear to be new beginnings 
in the mental flow. To explain such cases, two theories 
exist. (1.) The connecting ideas were in consciousness, but 
vanished as soon as they had conjured up the suggested 
idea, and left no trace behind. (2.) The connecting ideas 
were not in consciousness, but below it as latent mental 
states, and the connection took place in this sub-conscious 
region. Suppose A is given in consciousness, and C sud- 
denly appears. On the former view, B, the connecting link, 
was momentarily in consciousness, and disappeared without 
leaving any impression upon the memory. On the latter 
view, B was not in consciousness at all. In support of the 
former view it is urged that ideas are constantly pouring 
through consciousness, yet without leaving any impression 
on the memory because of their irrelevancy to our mental 
state, or because of our total lack of interest and attention. 
Thus, in reading, all the words make an impression upon 
consciousness, but as words they are immediately forgot- 
ten. In writing we consciously direct the formation of 
each letter, but the recollection vanishes with the act itself. 
Hence we need not assume sub-conscious mental states to 
account for the fact. 

It is doubtful whether the fact itself exists which these 



TPIE MECHANISM OF REPRODUCTION. 97 

theories seek to explain. Both alike rest on the fancy that 
ideas are suggested only by ideas. Had it been seen that 
feelings, even of the vaguest sort, can suggest ideas, the 
fact in question would have been doubted. What suggested 
idea B ? No idea A is found, but it is concluded that the 
idea A must have been there, either in consciousness or 
out of it. But, instead of idea A, it may have been a feel- 
ing F in any of its shades or modifications, and these may 
have been so fleeting as to attract no attention whatever. 
They may even remain in consciousness, yet so involved 
with other elements as to present no clearly distinguishable 
content. Instead, then, of saying that the connecting link 
is not in consciousness, we go as far as the facts warrant 
when we say that we do not distinguish the line of connec- 
tion. There is certainly no occasion for falling back on 
unconscious mental modifications, or on what Hamilton, 
with a close approach to a contradiction, calls latent modi- 
fications of consciousness. The factors which enter into 
an object are so numerous as often to admit of no distinct 
recognition ; and suggestion may take place through any 
of them. When suggestion does take place through such 
undistinguished elements, then we have the appearance of 
the fact assumed by the two theories, an apparently ground- 
less suggestion. We have an illustration in the frequent 
experience of being reminded by something of another thing 
without being able to tell what it is in the first which re- 
calls the second. 

Various experiments are made in physiological psychol- 
ogy to measure the time of the associational process. Thus 
words are called, and the time elapsing before compre- 
hension is measured. As yet nothing has been revealed 
beyond the unimportant but familiar fact that things are 
more quickly recalled in the measure of their familiarity, 
or that customary associations take less time than infre- 
quent ones. By the aid of statistical tables and occasional 

7 



98 PSYCHOLOGY. 

woodcuts this commonplace is made to assume a novel and 
severely scientific appearance. 

Herewith we close the discussion of the mechanism of 
representative knowledge. The conclusion is, that the facts 
admit of no mechanical construction, and that only a general 
description of the process is possible. There is no theory 
which gives any real insight into reproduction, and no for- 
mula which enables us to trace the process in detail. The 
general law already given does not enable us to predict 
special cases ; nor is it by any means always possible to 
trace the course of suggestion after the event has declared 
itself. 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 99 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. 
CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 

A detailed account of this theory seems desirable, not 
because of its intrinsic value, but solely because of its facti- 
tious importance. We have already pointed out that it 
may be held in a purely materialistic sense ; and in that 
form it is repudiated in advance. But it may also be held 
in connection with a spiritual conception of the soul. Its 
most general assumption is, that every mental state, of 
whatever kind, makes some permanent impression upon the 
brain, which thus becomes a register of experience. Its 
common statement provides only for the recovery of sensa- 
tions, as follows. 

Every sensation has for its antecedent some molecular 
movement in the brain ; and thereby, through repetition, 
the brain acquires a tendency to that movement. Thus 
permanent impressions of some sort are made upon the 
brain-tissue, and these provide for the repetition of the 
sensations themselves in their faint form as representa- 
tions. In any future nervous action there will be a ten- 
dency to re-excite the earlier forms of activity, and the 
corresponding representations will be reproduced. 

In this form the theory is manifestly incomplete, as it 
provides only for the case of knowledge obtained through 
the senses, whereas reproduction has to do, not only with 
this, but also with emotions, thoughts, resolves, volitions, 
etc. To make the doctrine adequate, we must assume that 
all mental states, whatever their origin, impress themselves 
upon the brain in such a way as to leave relatively perma- 
nent registers of themselves. We must next assume that 



100 PSYCHOLOGY. 

these registers interact in some way, and thus determine 
the appearance and disappearance of the corresponding 
ideas. Those who have held the view have generally held 
a sensational philosophy, and thus have concealed from 
themselves the enormous complexity of the theory. 

As thus given, the theory is very vague, and needs fur- 
ther specification. It is not clear whether the nervous 
registers consist in special groupings, or in special move- 
ments, or in a form of organic habit, a tendency to re- 
peat the customary forms of action. The more common 
view unites the first and second, and regards the nervous 
register as consisting in a special grouping leading to spe- 
cial movements within that grouping. The special group- 
ing alone would be no ground for either sensation or its 
recall ; and the special movement implies some special 
grouping as its possibility. These two views then imply 
each other. The third view will be considered by itself. 
Moreover, as the cell is the unit of structure in the gray 
matter of the brain, where by common consent these regis- 
ters are located, the brain-cells are supposed to become the 
carriers of our experience through the modifications pro- 
duced in them. We shall call the view, therefore, the 
nerve-cell theory; but our criticism will apply equally to 
any theory which regards the nervous register as consist- 
ing in special groupings and movements of the brain ele- 
ments. By cells, then, we understand, not the physiologi- 
cal unit of structure, but the peculiar grouping which is 
supposed to bear our past experience. 

We consider the cell theory first. To begin with, it is 
plain that we get no aid from the theory unless we refer 
different experiences to different cells. For if one and the 
same cell had to preserve distinct a multitude of impres- 
sions, it would be quite impossible to see how the one 
physical cell could do this more efficiently than the mind 
itself. Hence the theory has generally been regarded as 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 101 

demanding separate cells for the preservation of distinct 
experiences ; and this has even been regarded as an ad- 
vantage, as it furnishes a ready explanation of the strange 
psychological fact that ideas do not coalesce in conscious- 
ness although without dividing walls. We have but to 
suppose each idea based upon the action of a separate cell 
to see why this is so. At least we are told so, although it 
is not at first clear that the distinctness of the cells out of 
consciousness must forbid the fusion of their resultants in 
consciousness. 

This theory, like materialism, is perfectly intelligible 
until one seeks to understand it. Or, like materialism 
again, it explains facts in general very handsomely, but is 
rather at a disadvantage when applied to facts in particu- 
lar. Having decided to call certain hypothetical molecular 
groupings representatives of ideas, and having further as- 
sumed them in various dynamic relations, we seem to have 
all the conditions of insight. But some difficulties emerge 
upon closer examination. 

First of all, the complexity of the theory must be noticed. 
Take a single sense, as vision. The same object makes 
very different sense impressions, according to our distance 
from it. Every step toward it modifies the visual impres- 
sion and the number of retinal elements concerned in the 
vision. Again, I may easily cause the image at anv point 
to fall on different parts of the retina, and thus bring 
different nervous elements into play, and produce again 
new and peculiar sense impressions. But since these are 
all distinguishable, and since a given cell can receive only 
a single impression, it would follow that an indefinite num- 
ber of cells is required to represent a short experience with 
a single visual object. The same considerations apply to 
any of the other senses. All admit of indefinite degrees of 
distinguishable sensation, and hence there must be a cor- 
responding number of cells to make the discrimination 



102 PSYCHOLOGY. 

possible. Likewise, every object is given in an indefinite 
number of relations, or with an ever-varying content. Thus 
a given person, A, is known as a boy or a man ; as meeting us 
in this or that place, or under these or those circumstances ; 
as wearing a certain style of clothing, or as making this or 
that remark. Our experience of A, and of every object in 
general, is always particular, and never can be universal. 
Hence there must be a special cell for each of these special 
experiences. This overwhelming complexity is overlooked 
by making the logical universal in each case take the place 
of the specific experience. But this will not do, for two 
reasons : (1.) it is a peculiarity of the logical universal 
that it coexists with the cases subsumed under it, and does 
not arise from their fusion ; and (2.) if the cell represented 
only the logical universal, we should be unable to recall any 
of the specific cases. Hence we must have special cells for 
genera, other cells for the included species, still others for 
the individuals, and an indefinite number for the myriad 
contexts in which each individual has been experienced. 
Thus there must be a cell for color, still others for colors, 
others again for all possible shades of those colors, and 
finally a countless number for the myriad experiences with 
individual cases. When we multiply these by the number 
of individuals, we begin to get some idea of the complexity 
of the theory. This must then bo increased by the num- 
ber of possible experiences ; for, by the theory, for each dis- 
tinguishable form and place of every experience, real and 
possible, there must be a special nervous grouping and 
movement which can be appropriated to nothing else after 
the experience has occurred. And even this is not the 
end, for separate experiences, real and possible, of the same 
thing, as well as of different things, must have their special 
grouping ; for they are certainly distinguishable, and on the 
theory this must point to peculiar corresponding grouping. 
Whatever is distinguishable in mental experience, whether 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 103 

in space, time, number, quantity, quality, etc., must be 
based on correspondent nervous differences, and have its 
appropriate cell. Indeed, it would follow that the cell of 
a given experience could never represent any other, even of 
the same class, for that other would always differ in time 
at least, and generally in many other respects ; it would 
then be special, and must have its special cell. 

This complexity may be further illustrated by the facts 
of language. TTe must have cells not only for the several 
parts of speech, but also for every word ; and not only for 
every word as representing an object, but also for every 
word as a thing in itself. That is. there must be cells for 
the objects, and other cells for the words, as the two are 
quite distinct. There must also be cells for the sounds of 
the words, and cells for the words as written. Take, for 
example. •• through*' ; there must be a cell for the sound, 
others for the printed letters, others for the written letters, 
and still others for their combination. Without the first, 
we should not understand the word when spoken ; without 
the second and third, we should not recognize the word as 
written or printed ; and without the fourth, we could not 
spell it. Finally, there must be some kind of nervous 
grouping for each of the many relations in which this word, 
as preposition, stands to others. 

Again, if we learn a foreign language, a corresponding 
number of different cells must be produced outside of the 
tract which represents the words and grammar of our 
mother tongue. If we should go on, like Cardinal Mezzo- 
fanti, who. it is said, spoke fluently in thirty languages, 
and knew something of seventy-two languages, it would 
seem as if the language tract would get filled up. Of 
course it would take a correspondingly great number of 
cells to represent all this linguistic wealth, and there would 
be also as many different sets of cells as there were dif- 
ferent languages. It is somewhat hard to see what the 



104 PSYCHOLOGY. 

difference is between the cells of different words in the 
same language, but the physical difference between Eng- 
lish, French, German, and Italian cells is highly obscure. 
This complexity has been lost sight of because of the fancy 
that experience is of the logical universal ; and that hence 
a single cell might represent all the individuals of a class. 
Probably the theory would never have been held at all by 
any but materialists, except for this mistake. 

To keep the impressions separate is a second point of 
great difficulty. Suppose a series of impressions on the 
retina ; where are they stored ? Not in the retina and the 
optic nerve ; for these perpetually return to a state of equi- 
librium. Otherwise they could not mediate a knowledge of 
all visible objects. The impressions, then, are stored some- 
where in the brain, probably in some area of the enveloping 
gray matter. Impression a, then, finds its way to a given 
point in this area, and a cell is formed, or an existing cell is 
modified. Impressions 6, c, d, e, etc. follow, and other cells 
are made or modified. To assume that the nerve elements 
which receive the several impressions were originally 
adapted to them alone, would be a monstrous extension of 
the doctrine of the specific energy of the nerves, and would 
be a physiological form of pre-established harmony which 
would likely find no supporters. We should need to sup- 
pose, for example, that the word " two " can be understood 
only by a certain element in the visual area and by a cer- 
tain other element in the auditory area ; and that only on 
the supposition that these elements have been Anglicized. 
Yet, without assuming such pre-established harmony, it is 
not easy to see why impression a should be stored in cell a, 
and not in any other cell whatever. It is still harder to 
see why impressions b, c, etc. should turn aside to form 
special cells for themselves, instead of modifying the results 
of a, and forming a mixed resultant. The original nerve 
elements were as open to b, c, etc. as to a ; and hence all 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 105 

the laws of physical action would lead us to expect a re- 
sultant impression, in which the plurality and peculiarities 
of the components should disappear. If this does not take 
place, we must suppose that, for some inscrutable reason, a 
given nerve element, when once made the bearer of a men- 
tal experience, is thereafter incapable of receiving new 
impressions. The method of securing this extraordinary 
result is beyond all suspicion. Of course, this view fur- 
ther implies that the possibilities of experience are being 
used up, and that all new impressions must be referred to 
the elements which have not yet been pre-empted. 

This implication has been recognized, and the attempt 
has been made to calculate the probable number of dispos- 
able cells, and the resulting range of knowledge. 1 

The working of the theory implies that the recurrence 
of an impression may re-excite the ancient cell ; but as the 
same impressions never recur, but only similar ones with 
different contexts, it is hard to see how the same cell can 
ever be re-excited. In some way, however, similar impres- 
sions are supposed to betake themselves to the same cells. 
Hence, a repetition of an old experience must find its way 
to its proper cell, however many intervening cells of dis- 
similar experiences there may be. We should expect an 
in-going impulse to excite all the cells along its track, and 
thus to precipitate an indefinite number of past experiences 
upon us. But as this does not happen, we must fall back 
upon some specific relation between a given impulse and 
the corresponding cell, so that only the former can excite 
the latter, and so that the former can excite only the latter. 
But how this selective action is possible is not clear. It 
has been suggested that we might conceive of it as the re- 
lation of a musical note to a series of stretched cords. In 
the latter case, a given note is responded to only by the 
cord which gives that note, while all the others remain 

1 See Bain's " Mind and Body." 



106 PSYCHOLOGY. 

silent. But this suggestion only restates the problem, with- 
out giving any kind of idea how the thing is done in the 
brain. In any case, we have to assume a highly mysterious 
relation between a given impulse and a given cell ; whereas 
absolutely nothing is known which suggests that a given 
impulse is not adapted to excite all cells alike which may 
lie along its track. Nothing is known, for example, which 
suggests that a given word, seen or pronounced, is able to 
excite only one corresponding cell, and not rather all cells 
connected with the nervous area in question. 

The construction of our complex notions is also a point 
of great obscurity. Take, for instance, molasses. As 
having a peculiar odor, there must be a molasses cell con- 
nected with the olfactory nerve. As having a peculiar 
look, there must be a molasses cell connected with the 
optic nerve. As having a peculiar flavor, there must be a 
molasses cell connected with the nerves of taste. As hav- 
ing a name which may be both read and heard, there must 
be a corresponding cluster for both eye and ear. Now how 
do these several simple cells unite to form the complex 
notion molasses ? It would not do to have them leave their 
several sensational areas and meet at some central spot; 
for that would take them out of all relation to the sensory 
nerves. It has been held that each remains where it is in 
its own sensational area, and that they are united by lines 
of nervous connection, whereby an affection of one becomes 
an affection of all. Of course, anatomy knows nothing of 
these lines ; but, allowing them, they raise more problems 
than they solve. If there antecedent to experience, we 
have a physiological pre-established harmony between the 
brain and the future experience of the individual ; and if 
not there, we must assume that a single experience, which 
often results in an abiding association, can produce and 
maintain a line of nervous connection where there was 
none before. I meet a person in a restaurant. Both per- 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 107 

son and place may be strange to me. In that case, at least 
two new cells and a new line of nervous connection must 
be established, as a result of a momentary experience. 
Such extraordinary structural changes do not happen else- 
where with such rapidity. 

The complexity of this view, again, is hidden by attend- 
ing only to the logical universal. The general notion with, 
say, five marks, needs apparently only five cells and five 
lines of communication ; but the particular case is never 
the universal, but is subsumed under it. Hence, each of 
the five marks must have an indefinite number of special 
cases, and there must be a corresponding number of lines 
of communication all uniting in the class cell. In the 
same way, all the words and letters of a language must 
have the most amazing complexity of interlacing. As 
words they must be linked with their objects, and not only 
with an object in general, but with an indefinite variety of 
particular objects. As words, again, they must be vari- 
ously linked with one another in an indefinite number of 
phrases. The letters, too, must have their appropriate cells, 
and each of these cells must be connected with myriad 
others in the manifold combinations of spelling. It is not 
plain whether the cell for t standing alone is the same as 
the cells for t in "the," "this," "that," etc., or whether 
there is a special cell for each case ; but the complexity 
is equally great in either case. In the latter, the single 
letter requires an enormous number of cells ; in the former, 
it requires an equally great number of lines of nervous 
connection. 

Moreover, allowing these lines of communication to ex- 
ist, the peculiarities of association are far from explained. 
We have merely explained a possible association, and not 
the peculiarities of actual reproduction. Thus molasses, 
again, is given in the greatest variety of contexts. The 
various kinds and grades of molasses, molasses on bread 



108 PSYCHOLOGY. 

or the baby's fingers, molasses in the cruet, the cask, the 
store, molasses at the boarding-school or in its hygienic 
relations, molasses in its manufacture, molasses in its re- 
lation to sugar or New England rum, molasses in its 
commercial and international relations, — any of these 
considerations, and any one of an indefinite number of 
special cases under each of these specifications, may be 
suggested by the word molasses. Hence, the auditory 
molasses cell must be connected by nerve-lines with all 
these other cells ; and since the same effect might have 
followed if any of the other senses had been excited, all 
the molasses cells must be in similar connection. But then 
it is peculiarly hard to see why the stimulus of a given cell 
should not produce a discharge along all the lines of com- 
munication. This is what all physical analogy would lead 
us to expect ; but this is precisely what does not happen. 
The actual excitation takes place along lines of psycho- 
logical interest, and these have no physical analogy. The 
nervous discharge could have no interest in going along 
one line rather than another, and, unless there be some 
physical hindrance, must take place along all lines alike. 
In most cases, withal, there is no discharge on any line, but 
the mind keeps on its chosen course of thought. Hence, 
after constructing a theory with great pains, we have the 
mortification of finding that it will not work without as- 
suming a purely hypothetical set of physical conditions to 
make it adequate to the effect. 

A still more remarkable case of selection appears in 
the facts of aphasia. It is well known that, in this dis- 
ease, there is often a progressive loss of the parts of 
speech. Proper names go first, then the more common 
substantives, then the abstract parts of speech, as verbs, 
verbal nouns, and prepositions, and finally the interjec- 
tions. 

This order is what we should expect from the familiar 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 109 

psychological law, that the strength of association varies 
with the frequency with which the elements have been 
conjoined. In the case of persons they are represented in 
our thought by their image, rather than by their names. 
In the case of common nouns the same is true, but to a 
less extent. The abstract parts of speech, on the other 
hand, are represented only by the word. In their case, 
then, the strongest association must be established. These 
facts, then, are not entirely unamenable to psychological 
law; but they are entirely foreign to any known laws of 
physical action. On the theory of nerve-cells, we must 
suppose a curious selection on the part of the disease, — 
attacking first of all the proper nouns, then addressing 
itself to the common nouns, and finally, after devouring 
verbs and prepositions, rooting out the interjections. How 
such selection is physically possible is not explained. It 
has been suggested that, the parts of speech are put in in 
layers in the brain-cells ; but this only removes the diffi- 
culty to the original stowing, and besides creates surprise 
that the layers should always be attacked by disease in the 
same order. 

The cell theory labors under the following physiological 
difficulties : — 

1. The existence of sensational areas is not certainly 
established, and in any case they form only a small amount 
of the gray envelope of the brain, 

2. It asserts a specific energy of the nervous elements, 
either original or acquired, which is opposed to all the 
indications of physiological research. 

3. Hence its assumption of specific nerve cells for each 
element of sense experience is very doubtful, while the as- 
sumption of such cells for every element of thought and 
feeling is an hypothesis to prove an hypothesis. 

4. Assuming these cells, we have next to assume special 
lines of nervous connection anions; the cells whose mental 



110 PSYCHOLOGY. 

counterparts appear together in consciousness ; that is, a 
second hypothesis is brought in to support the first. 

5. Since all associated elements do not always appear 
together, but now one and now another, we must next as- 
sume a series of unknown physical conditions which pro- 
duce this peculiar result, so unlike the uniform action of 
physical forces. That is, a third hypothesis is needed to 
support the other two. Moreover, these unknown condi- 
tions contain the whole mystery of the actual result. 

6. To keep the impressions separate, either as deposited 
in the original brain-cells or as represented by new group- 
ings, we have to assume some unknown conditions which 
do it we know not how. This is an additional hypothesis 
to prove the rest. 

7. The complexity of the theory makes demands upon 
the brain which there is no reason for believing that it can 
fulfil. 

8. The duality of the brain as a mental organ might com- 
pel us to reduplicate the whole intolerable complexity. 

9. The facts of aphasia mentioned, and various facts con- 
nected with the loss of memory, lead on this theory to the 
most fantastic and grotesque assumptions. 

Finally, if these difficulties were all overcome, we are 
unable to work the theory without assuming an indepen- 
dent power of reproduction in the mind itself. 

It would be insufferably tedious to pursue this theory 
any further. In itself it belongs to the department of 
physiological mythology, and was born either of mate- 
rialism or of an inability to think except in physical 
pictures. In such cases the mystery of reproduction seems 
solved when we feign a multitude of cells duly connected 
with nervous fibres, and grouped into larger clusters. Such 
external relations of imaginary spatial inclusion and con- 
nection have been supposed to account for the unpicturable 
relations of thought. The same type of mind has found it 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. HI 

easy to explain self-consciousness by supposing the brain 
molecules to move in paths which return upon themselves ; 
for is not self-consciousness such a recurrent movement ? 
And what is plainer than that the higher forms of mental 
activity are explained when we suppose their seat to lie 
higher up in the brain ? And yet, perhaps, as profounder 
forms of mental action, they might more appropriately be 
located at its base. 

The second form of the cerebral theory is based upon 
the analogy of habit, and escapes many of the gratuitous 
difficulties of the cell theory. It regards experience as 
stored in the brain in the form of tendencies, dispositions, 
facilities, etc. There is no need, then, to provide a sepa- 
rate cell for each experience, but one and the same nervous 
element may preserve various experiences. Our muscles 
do not contain their past acts in discrete physical repre- 
sentatives, but rather in increased facility in general, and 
especially in increased facility in the particular line of 
action chosen. It would be absurd to look in the musi- 
cian's fingers for the pieces of music mastered, and it 
would be still more absurd to seek to determine the range 
of musical acquirement by the number of the fingers. 
Individual movements are lost in the common resultant 
of developed muscular possibilities. Applying this view 
to the brain, the looking for nerve cells which represent 
discrete experiences and retain them in their discreteness 
seems like looking in the athlete's muscles for the separate 
exercises whereby they have grown to their present facility, 
or like looking in the vocal chords of a singer for discrete 
representatives of all the songs sung. Counting the brain- 
cells, again, in order to determine the range of possible 
knowledge, seems like counting the strings of a piano to 
see how many tunes can be played upon it. 

This view, though a great relief from the unmanage- 
able complexity and fantastic assumptions of the previous 



112 PSYCHOLOGY. 

theory, is itself far from clear. The notion of habit is an 
obscure one, which cannot be represented in any terms 
of material movement and grouping. A physical system 
under the action of physical forces may tend toward a 
state of molecular equilibrium, as when a bell acquires 
a finer tone by use ; but beyond this, improvement cannot 
go. This, however, is anything but habit, and such as it 
is, it depends upon a new grouping of the elements. If 
now the view in question recognizes nothing beyond the 
physical elements in the brain, it must base the growing 
facility on a change of grouping. The elements in general 
have no habits but laws ; and a disposition or tendency 
which is not the result of some grouping is unintelligible. 
A pendulum acquires no tendency to swing, a clock- 
hammer forms no habit of striking. But if we base the 
tendencies of the brain upon a change of grouping in the 
elements, we pass back into the previous view. But if we 
assume some mysterious principle besides the elements 
which is the ground and subject of the growing facility, 
we have something quite as mysterious as the soul itself ; 
and something withal which seems no better able to ex- 
plain reproduction than the soul itself. The assumption 
of this second mystery throws no light on the general 
problem. It only explains the obscure by the obscurer. 
We find a series of activities in the mind which we cannot 
deduce, but only describe. We seek to explain these by 
a scries of hypothetical activities in a hypothetical some- 
thing, and nre so pleased with our effort as to fail to in- 
quire whether we are any better off than before. In many 
respects this view is worse than the preceding one. The 
actual order of association is left even more obscure ; for 
while there might be a concurrent excitation of connected 
cells, it is extremely hard to get a physical representation 
of associated " facilities " or " dispositions." 

As a result of all these considerations, we conclude that 



CEREBRAL THEORY OF REPRODUCTION. 113 

physiology is not able to construct a theory of representa- 
tive knowledge which shall greatly advance psychological 
study. In no case can cerebral reproduction dispense with 
an independent mental reproduction ; and hence, apart 
from its grotesque and unmanageable features, it is a 
purely gratuitous hypothesis. The cerebral theory, with 
its elegant conception of " unconscious cerebration," is a 
piece of physiological metaphysics which does great honor 
to the objective method of psychological study. 

This conclusion, however, does not imply that the brain 
has no significance for reproduction ; but only that that 
significance does not consist in being an organic copy of 
experience. The known facts simply assure us that the 
state of the body affects the memory, as well as the other 
forms of mental activity. 

The only sense in which the brain can be called the 
organ of memory is that in which the brain is the organ 
of thought. This does not mean that the brain does the 
remembering and thinking for the mind, or that the mind 
uses the brain to think and remember with; both of 
these notions are absurd. It means simply that the brain 
conditions the mental activities of thought and recollec- 
tion. This simple fact of experience is made the occasion 
for the fantastic and grotesque whimsies of the cerebral 
theory, with the result of immensely increasing our diffi- 
culties without adding any insight. Nor are we in any 
way better able to understand the disturbances of memory 
on the cerebral theory, than on any other. On any theory, 
these disturbances remain facts which admit of only a 
hypothetical explanation. For example, a person com- 
pletely loses his knowledge of a given language. From 
the psychological side such a fact is confessedly myste- 
rious. We must, then, seek a physiological explanation. 
But did the cells which stored up this linguistic wealth 
suddenly vanish, or coalesce ? If we attribute it to some 

8 



114 PSYCHOLOGY 

paralysis of the language tract, is it quite clear how such 
paralysis should confine itself to one language only ? And 
if the cells do not vanish, but are inhibited in their repro- 
ductive action by some unknown circumstances, is that 
view any clearer than the other, that the soul may be 
inhibited in its reproductive action by untoward physical 
or mental circumstances ? 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 115 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 

Sensations constitute a first order of mental reaction 
against external action. These in turn become the ground 
of a second order of mental reaction. This second order 
consists in a working over of the sensations into rational 
forms, or in their interpretation according to certain ra- 
tional ideas. In this process appears a new factor of the 
mental life, which we call the thought-factor. We propose 
to show that such a factor exists, and to consider some of 
the leading ideas according to which the thought-activity 
proceeds. 

At this point we reach a parting of the ways in psy- 
chology. One school claims that sensibility and the primary 
laws of association among sensations and their representa- 
tions, account for all that is in the mind. In this view, 
there is no specific thought-activity as distinct from sensi- 
bility, but all the so-called higher mental faculties can be 
reduced to modifications of the sensibility ; and all appar- 
ently higher ideas are only modifications, or groupings, of 
sensation. The primal and only mental reaction is found 
in the sensations. When these are produced, there is no 
further mental interference ; but they enter into interaction 
according to the laws of association, and thus produce and 
fashion the mental life. That is, after the sensations are 
produced, the mind becomes the passive stage or back- 
ground across which they move according to laws of their 
own. As finding the principle of movement and synthesis 
in association, this school is called the associational school. 
As viewing experience as the only source of knowledge, 



116 PSYCHOLOGY. 

it is called the empirical school. As holding that sensa- 
tion is the ultimate unit of experience, it is called the 
sensational school. 

Opposed to this school is another, which denies each of 
the preceding claims. It holds that there is a distinct 
thought-activity which cannot be reduced to the sensibility, 
and that there are rational ideas which are forever distinct 
from sensation. As such, it may be called the rational 
school of psychology. Further, it holds that experience, 
though the occasion, and in this sense the precondition, of 
knowledge, is nevertheless not the only source of knowl- 
edge. As holding that the mind can know some things on 
its own account, it is called the intuitive school. Finally, 
the mind is not simply the passive seat of mental events, 
it is also the active ground of many of its own activities. 

The sensational school would view all mental movement 
as an occurrence in the mind ; the rational school views 
some mental movement at least as an activity of the 
mind. 

The distinction between these two schools has a psy- 
chological and a philosophical aspect. We may discuss 
the origin of our ideas and faculties, or we may discuss 
the grounds of belief. In the former case the claim of the 
sensational school is, that all our faculties are only phases 
of the basal processes of the sensibility, and that all our 
ideas can be deduced from the same source. The claim 
of the rational school is, that our faculties are not pro- 
ducts of sense experience, but factors of our mental consti- 
tution without which no articulate experience would be 
possible. Rationalism further finds the origin of many of 
our ideas in the mind itself. They exist in the mind as 
constitutive principles prior to all experience, but arc called 
into action only by experience. In this sense, they are 
innate. This is the psychological aspect of the question. 

When the debate concerns the grounds of belief, the 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 117 

claim of empiricism is, that experience is the only ground 
for believing any proposition whatever. The rational school 
admits this claim for the great majority of propositions ; 
but disputes it for certain others. In some cases, it is 
held, the mind can transcend its particular experiences, 
and affirm certain propositions to be universally true on 
the basis of its own insight. This is the philosophical 
aspect of the question. Our present concern is entirely 
with the psychological question. 

Historically, sensationalism has been very wavering and 
unclear in its conception of sensation ; and most of its 
plausibility is due to this fact. We have pointed out that 
our sensations have a double reference ; first, they are re- 
ferred to the self as their subject ; and second, they are 
referred to external objects as their qualities or as caused 
by them. The sensationalist is supposed to take sensa- 
tions as simple affections of the sensibility, which have 
primarily no reference to anything beyond themselves ; but 
in not a little of his exposition the objectified and rational- 
ized sensation is tacitly taken as the starting point. This 
inconsistency is to be guarded against. If the unreferred 
sensation is the beginning, the reference must be deduced ; 
if the referred sensation is the beginning, the sensation 
itself is seen to involve rational elements, and the view 
becomes indistinguishable from the instinct philosophy of 
common sense. We shall take the former view of the 
doctrine. 

The earlier forms of the doctrine regarded the mind as 
purely receptive and passive. It was compared to a sheet 
of white paper, upon which experience delivered itself free 
from any subjective adulterations. This notion was based 
upon the uncritical fancy that sensations pass ready made 
into the mind, and without any modification. The doctrine 
of the subjectivity of sense qualities, however, has entirely 
deprived this fancy of all credit ; and sensationalism has 



118 PSYCHOLOGY. 

modified itself accordingly. The mental outfit which it 
now posits is sensibility and the laws of association ; and 
with these it claims to exhibit all else as their product. 
This claim is to be examined. 

All thought and knowledge rest ultimately upon a pro- 
cess of discrimination, comparison, and assimilation. Even 
the single sensation is not properly known as long as it 
is only an affection of the sensibility ; for sensation as 
a state of feeling is not necessarily a clear mental object. 
A child whose appetite is satisfied, and whose body is com- 
fortably warm and at ease in all respects, is doubtless in 
a pleasant state of feeling ; but it has no rational appre- 
hension of the fact. The dog on the rug and the cat on 
the hearth are probably very comfortable, but it is doubtful 
if they can be said to know it. Before the sensitive state 
can properly become a mental object, it must be discrimi- 
nated from the self as its state, and set over against the 
self as its object. And even this would imply only a gen- 
eral objectification of the' object, and no definite knowledge. 
In order to reach an intimate knowledge, the sensation 
must be classified and related. It is hardly known at all 
until it is known as one of a kind ; and in order to this, it 
must be discriminated from the unlike and assimilated to 
the like. Until this is done, we have a feeling without a 
clearly defined content, and one to which we can give no 
definite place in our mental system. 

The primal and basal short-coming of sensationalism is 
failure to notice the implications of this fact. Hence it 
lias assumed that to have like or unlike experiences is 
equivalent to a knowledge of their likeness or unlikeness ; 
or to have coexistent and sequent experiences is to have 
a knowledge of coexistence or sequence. In general, it is 
assumed that the existence of relations among the objects 
of experience is the same as a knowledge of those relations. 
The likeness or unlikeness of two experiences is supposed 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 119 

to be identical with our knowledge of them as such. The 
interaction or association of ideas may then be relied on 
to integrate like ideas and to dissociate unlike ideas ; and 
this is a judgment of likeness or unlikeness. Experience 
also gives us experiences in coexistence and sequence, and 
this is a judgment of coexistence and sequence. Thus the 
judgment appears as no special faculty, but as a necessary 
outcome of sensation and association. Association, then, 
can give us propositions ; and by uniting propositions it can 
give us reasoning. Thus the entire life appears as a phase 
of the sensibility and the basal process of association. 

Unfortunately, this view is too easy and complete to be 
above suspicion. Let us see, then, where the interaction 
and association of sensations bring us. Suppose that the 
sensations of a strong light, a, and of a weak one, b, should 
arise simultaneously in consciousness. If now they interact 
mechanically, we should expect them to flow together into 
a common resultant, c, in which a and b should disappear 
entirely. "When two forces, a and b, act upon a material 
element at the same time, they have a single resultant, r, 
in which all traces of a and b have disappeared. This, 
however, does not take place in consciousness ; but a and 
b remain distinct and unmodified in their content. Only 
on this condition is a judgment possible. The union of a 
and b in c would give no hint of the relations of a and b. 
But how a and b can be kept separate, and at the same time 
be brought together in the spaceless, partitionless field of 
thought, is the impenetrable and unparalleled mystery of 
consciousness. A knowledge of the relations of a and b is 
reached only as a and b remain separate and self-identical, 
and as a unitary subject, M, grasps, discriminates, and com- 
pares a and b in the same act of consciousness, and thus 
forms the judgment that a is greater or stronger than b. 
Out of such an act of comparison may arise a qualitative 
judgment of likeness or unlikeness, or a quantitative judg- 



120 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ment of equivalence, or of greater or less, according to the 
nature of the objects compared. But this act is not an in- 
teraction of the sensations ; it is an activity upon the sen- 
sations. The utmost that association could do would be to 
present similar ideas before consciousness ; it could not pro- 
duce the judgment. In short, likeness and unlikeness are 
not things, and cannot be given in any sense experience. 
They are not properties of the sensations as such ; but are 
rather ideas which arise when the mind brings its several 
states into the unity of a single act of discrimination and 
comparison. However like or unlike our states might be in 
themselves, the knowledge of their likeness or unlikeness 
is possible only as there is an activity above and apart 
from the sensations, which distinguishes them as objects 
and unites them under the forms of the judgment. 

Let us vary the statement. Assume, then, that a, a, b, b, 
c, c, d, d, are sensations in a purely sensitive mind, and 
allow that association should form the groups a a, b b, 
c c, d d. Still there is no provision for the perception of 
the likeness or unlikeness. Each sensation is a particular 
affection of the sensibility, and cannot even know of its 
neighbors' existence, to say nothing of its passing a judg- 
ment upon them. There is no movement possible until 
M distinguishes the sensations from itself and from one 
another, and, bringing them together in an act of com- 
parison, unites them in the judgment of likeness or unlike- 
ness. The sensationalist dispenses with this activity by 
doing the work himself. He, the speculator, stands apart 
from a a, b 5, etc. ; and, seeing that they are like or unlike, 
he mistakes his perception of likeness or unlikeness for 
its perception by the mental states themselves. 

Plainly, sensations with reference to that discrimination, 
comparison, and assimilation upon which knowledge de- 
pends, are in the passive mood. They do not discriminate, 
compare, and assimilate themselves ; they are discriminated, 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 121 

compared, and assimilated. The assimilation possible to 
association is a concurrent presentation of similar ele- 
ments ; the assimilation which knowledge demands is the 
recognition of this similarity, and a reference of the ele- 
ments to a common class. Associative assimilation may 
have great significance as a condition of rational assimila- 
tion, but can never pass into it. The discriminating and 
assimilating subject must stand apart from the sensational 
series ; and its activity is not an activity of sensation, but 
an activity upon sensation. 

A similar argument is possible for the knowledge of 
relations in general. Existence in relations is not identical 
with a knowledge of those relations. Likeness or unlike- 
ness of experience is not an experience of likeness or 
unlikeness. Coexistence in consciousness is not a con- 
sciousness of coexistence. Sequence in consciousness is 
not a consciousness of sequence. Plurality in experience 
is not an experience of plurality. The likeness, the co- 
existence, the sequence, the plurality, may be there ; but 
in order to secure their recognition there must be an 
activity of the mind upon the objects in question, which 
shall compare them and affirm the relations in question. 
Of course, relations could not be established if the things 
were not in themselves relatable ; but this relatability is 
not identical with the knowledge of the relations. Likeness 
and unlikeness in general cannot be made by the mind, but 
only discerned ; at the same time the likeness or unlikeness 
in experience emerges into knowledge only through a spe- 
cial activity above, and upon, the experience. 

We conclude, then, that the mental life reveals two 
entirely distinct processes ; (1.) the movements and affec- 
tions of the sensibility, and (2.) an activity upon them 
which results in the judgment, the establishment of rela- 
tions, and thus in rational knowledge. This activity is 
essentially what we mean by the thought-process. 



122 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The existence of an activity above sensation is shown by 
the most familiar experiences. When an affection of the 
sensibility is simple, it seems as if the sensation and our 
knowledge of it were strictly the same ; but when the sen- 
sation or representation is complex, the difference plainly 
appears. Thus, when we view a complex but unfamiliar 
object, we have a complete sensation ; yet we cannot tell 
what we have seen, owing to the failure to establish rela- 
tions among the component elements of the object. Again, 
when we look at a large number of objects, or a figure with 
many sides, we have the same result. The sensation is 
perfect, but knowledge is lacking. Nor is knowledge pos- 
sible until the mind has reacted upon the sensation, and 
by a process of counting and construction mastered its sig- 
nificance. Again, we may pronounce a sentence whose 
words are all familiar ; as, Peter's wife's mother's uncle's 
sister's husband is coming to see us. In such a case we 
might be greatly puzzled to identify an understanding of 
the words expressing the relation with a comprehension 
of the relation expressed. Nor will any mere staring at 
the object help us to knowledge. Objects cannot count 
themselves. The eyes cannot count them. The plurality 
of sensations constitutes the countable, not the counted. 
The significance of attention does not consist in an in- 
tenser stare, but in a new order of activity, the establishment 
of relations among the elements of the sense experience. 
These facts show that sensation may be complete and 
knowledge be lacking; and they cancel the attempt to 
identify sensation with the knowledge resulting from it. 
Indeed, even pathology often reveals these elements as 
distinct. In the so-called " soul-blindness " the sensitive 
function is undisturbed, while the rational function is re- 
pressed. Finally, our scientific activity perpetually carries 
us beyond sensations, to a great system of rational construc- 
tion which was never revealed to sense. But so slovenly 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 123 

has been the thinking of sensationalism that it has seldom 
scrupled to adopt the terminology and distinctions of both 
science and rational philosophy without ever inquiring 
whether they are possible on a sensational basis. The 
distinction of primary and secondary qualities is a case 
in point. This distinction has no meaning for sensational- 
ism ; but is borrowed from the opposite view. 

We resume the illustration already given. If we regard 
sensations as a first order of mental reaction against exter- 
nal action, we must regard this knowledge of relations as 
due to a second order of mental reaction, and one which 
makes the sensations and representations its proper object. 
Or, as we regard the external stimulus as the excitant which 
leads the mind to react with sensation, so we may regard 
the qualities of sensation in relation to one another as the 
excitant which leads the mind to react with the thought- 
activity. But just as the external stimulus produces no 
sensation except as it affects the peculiar sensitive nature 
of the mind, so the sensations themselves could never rise 
into rationality except as they furnish the occasion for 
the higher mental nature to unfold itself. 

With regard to the deduction of the higher from the 
lower forms of mental activity, sensationalists have always 
overlooked the ambiguity in the facts of mental develop- 
ment. They will have it that what comes after must be 
a transformation of what went before ; whereas it may be 
a new and special manifestation of the mental nature in 
general. This possibility is one we constantly see realized 
in nature. Cohesion, affinity, repulsion, are not transformed 
gravity, though they are manifested only after the elements 
have been brought together by gravity. They are special 
and irreducible functions of the elements, although con- 
ditioned in their manifestation. Before we draw the sen- 
sationalists' conclusion, we must examine the new functions 
and see if they can be regarded as phases of the old ones, 



124 PSYCHOLOGY. 

or whether they have special and irreducible peculiarities 
which compel us to view them as new, though conditioned, 
manifestations of the mental nature. 

Oversight of this possibility has made a large part of sen- 
sational polemics quite irrelevant. Great efforts have been 
made to show that sensations were first; as if this were 
ever disputed. But a recital of the order of mental devel- 
opment decides nothing as to its factors or the forces which 
carry it on. An apple tree may live for years before it 
bears apples, and it may even be hindered from ever bear- 
ing ; yet that does not prove that apples are the outcome 
of the tree's experience apart from any determining law in 
the tree itself. Temporal sequence in either physical or 
mental development does not decide whether the new fact 
is a transformation of the past or the manifestation of an 
immanent law. 

But this notion of a transformation of mental elements 
rests upon an implicit hypostasis of mental states. As 
was pointed out in treating of the simplicity of sensations, 
sensations are tacitly viewed as self-identical things, or as 
a kind of mental raw material which may be made into a 
great many mental compounds, while at the same time they 
remain self-identical and never leave the plane of their own 
sensational nature. But this fancy disappears when we 
see that sensations are simply mental functions. There 
is no mental stuff in them which admits of transformation ; 
and we might as well regard the later notes in a melody 
as transformations of the preceding ones, as view later 
mental states as transformations of their antecedents. A 
replacement of one form of function by another is all that 
is possible. 

When, then, sensations a, b, c, d are followed by a new 
form of mental action, it is absurd to view the latter as a 
phase of the former. We can only regard it as a new re- 
action of the mind against its sense experience. But in 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 125 

order to do this the mind must be more than sensitive. 
In a mind whose nature is fully expressed in the sensations 
a, b, c, d, there is no assignable reason for movement ; just 
as in physical elements whose nature is fully expressed in 
the law of gravitation there is no possibility of chemical 
combination. Advance becomes possible only as along with 
a, b, e, d we assume a nature, X, for whose unfolding a, b, e, d 
are but conditions. That X contains the law of the move- 
ment and its assumption, can never be escaped. Indeed, 
this is true for the different classes of sensations them- 
selves. There is no way of deducing sensations of sound 
from those of light, but for each class we have to assume 
some peculiar endowment of the soul. That they are 
classed together as sensations in no way removes their 
absolute difference. Classification neither makes identity 
nor abolishes distinction. 

Thinking proceeds by distinction and comparison. But 
there can be neither distinction nor comparison in general. 
Both processes imply some common relation under which 
the objects are subsumed ; and this common relation alone 
makes them possible. Things can be neither like nor 
unlike in general, but only in some common relation, as 
quantity, quality, number, space, time, dependence, etc. 
Things which are alike are such in some respect common 
to both. Things which are unlike are such in some rela- 
tion under which they are subsumed. This common rela- 
tion the scholastics called the tertium quid comparationis. 
It is the necessary implication of every act of compari- 
son and discrimination, and hence of every judgment. 
The judgment is an affirmation of relation under some 
of these general heads. Thus, all mathematical judg- 
ments express some relation under the general notions 
of figure, number, and quantity. Attributive judgments 
depend on the conception of substance and attribute. All 
judgments which affirm a dynamic dependence of one 



126 PSYCHOLOGY. 

thing on another come under the general relation of 
causation. 

It is oversight of this fact which underlies most of the 
satisfaction and dissatisfaction felt with the statement that 
thought is only an activity of discrimination and com- 
parison. The sensationalists have rejoiced in it, and many 
others have grieved over it. The truth is that the joy is 
entirely misplaced, and the grief largely so. For if objects 
may be distinguished as cause and effect, substance and 
attribute, reality and appearance, we bring in the whole 
apparatus of the rational philosophy through the very door 
opened by the sensationalists. It is, then, only a question 
whether some few judgments may not be better described 
as the bringing of a given subject directly under the head 
of the relation. The normal ideas are equally necessary 
in either case. The sensationalist gains nothing ; and for 
the intuitionalist it must at last reduce to a question of 
expression. 

Hence a study of the thought activity demands some 
notice of those general relations which thought finds, or 
establishes, among its objects. They have been variously 
called the categories of thought, norms of distinction and 
comparison, regulative ideas, etc. Some of these expres- 
sions may be better than others, but the meaning is the 
same in all. 

We proceed to notice the leading relations under which 
knowledge is constituted. Our inquiry, however, will have 
to do with their psychological nature and origin, rather 
than with their metaphysical significance. 

Likeness and unlikeness are not independent notions. 
They always demand for their understanding some general 
relation with reference to which the likeness or unlikeness 
exists. Things may be like or unlike in form, or quality, 
or quantity, or function, etc., but they cannot be like or 
unlike in general. Moreover, these ideas admit of no 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 127 

definition in their essential elements ; that is, what they 
mean can never be told, but only experienced. All that 
can be done in the way of communicating them to another 
is to prescribe a certain form of mental activity, in the 
hope that as the result thereof the other will experience 
in himself the meaning we seek to communicate. 

These ideas arise only as two or more experiences or 
objects are at once discriminated and compared in the' 
same act of consciousness. When this act, which cannot 
be construed or further described, is performed, then there 
arises the idea of likeness or unlikeness, according to the 
nature of the objects. In particular, qualitative likeness 
and unlikeness admit of no description. Quantitative like- 
ness and unlikeness are perceived when two or more cases 
of a common quality are compared. Here the mind com- 
paring two or more cases perceives a peculiar identity or 
change in its inner state as it passes from one to another, 
which change, moreover, is reversed when the order of 
mental movement is reversed. This fact is the basis of 
all ideas of quantitative equivalence, or of greater and less 
in quantity. But these ideas, though ultimately based 
upon the -sensibility, are not functions of the sensibility. 
They rather represent a new and higher form of mental 
function. 

The process just described is the one by which the 
mind proceeds in all classification and division. In this 
way arises all that we mean by general or class notions. 
Given experiences or objects are discriminated from others 
unlike them, and assimilated to others like them ; and thus 
the notion of classes is reached. The claim is often made 
that class notions arise through purely associative assimi- 
lation ; but we have already seen its untenability. 

Time expresses an order of relations which can be under- 
stood only in terms of itself. All the various definitions 
of it either imply it, or are other names for the same thing. 



128 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Metaphysics finds reasons for doubting the existence of 
time as an independent reality in which events occur ; but 
the psychological question as to the origin and function 
of the notion is independent of the metaphysical theory. 
However real time may be, the subjective origin of the 
notion will be the same as in the ideal theory ; and how- 
ever ideal time may be as an existence, its actual function 
in our mental life will be unchanged. 

No inspection of consciousness will reveal to us the origin 
of this idea, inasmuch as the idea is always there long before 
the reflective consciousness begins the inquiry. We can 
only study some of its logical conditions. Whence comes 
the idea of time ? 

A first suggestion might be that time is a quality of all 
mental states from sensation on ; but this would be a 
mistake. For time, considered as the relation of ante- 
cedence and sequence, is not a quality of mental states at 
all. It is a relation among them which in no way affects 
their qualitative character ; and this character, in turn, in 
no way determines the temporal relation. The two are 
conceived, even by common sense, as mutually indifferent. 
But if we say that time, as duration, is a quality of all 
mental states, the objection meets us that duration is an 
utterly impossible idea apart from an assumed sequence 
of temporal moments. 

The next thought of common sense, and the traditional 
doctrine of sensationalism, have been that the simple se- 
quence of sensations is identical with the idea of sequence ; 
and then by abstraction from the sense experience we get 
the notion of time as a whole. But this is only the tra- 
ditional error already referred to, namely, that relation 
among the objects of knowledge is the same as a knowl- 
edge of their relation . In fact, however, a sequence of 
ideas is so far from being an idea of sequence, that, if there 
were nothing but the former, the latter could never arise. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 129 

The reality of sequence does not help us to a knowledge 
of the same. If we assume a series of sequent activities 
in the outer world, and assume further that these affect us, 
still we provide only for a sequence of ideas, and not for 
an idea of sequence. If a should vanish from conscious- 
ness and b should appear, there would be a succession of 
a and b in consciousness, but no consciousness of suc- 
cession. Or if we should assume that consciousness is an 
inalienable quality of a and 5, this consciousness does not 
provide for a consciousness of the temporal relations of a 
and b; in order to this, we should need a consciousness 
of a second order. 

Memory and self-consciousness are necessary conditions 
for the emergence of the ideas of time. There is no rea- 
son for thinking that in a changeless state the idea would 
ever arise. Where all changes, the idea is impossible. 
Where nothing changes, the idea is equally impossible. 
This union of the changing and the changeless is given 
in self-consciousness, where the abiding self as given in 
memory is contrasted with its changing states. Until this 
is done, there may be a sequence of states, but no knowl- 
edge of this sequence. If we seek to get the idea from the 
fact that some elements of consciousness are fixed com- 
pared with others, and thus give use to a fixed background 
upon which the temporal sequence may be projected, we 
merely fall back again into the old error of mistaking 
sequence of ideas for an idea of sequence. No relation 
of the elements of consciousness among themselves can 
give the idea ; they can only furnish the occasion for its 
development. 

This reference to memory, however, does not quite reach 
the root of the matter ; for while memory serves to bring 
the idea into consciousness, memory in turn implies time. 
Memory becomes properly such only as its objects are 
given in temporal relations. Apart from these, memory 

9 



130 PSYCHOLOGY. 

is only a reproduction of experiences without any hint of 
our having had them previously. Nor will association in 
any way help us. This, too, could only give us the se- 
quence of ideas, and not the idea of sequence. There is 
nothing to do but to declare that the time idea rests ulti- 
mately upon an original and peculiar mental principle, 
whereby it connects its experiences under the special form 
of sequence. To return to a previous statement, the con- 
ception of sequence would be impossible if there were only 
a sequence of conceptions. All the conceptions which 
enter into a perception of sequence coexist in one form or 
another in the present consciousness. That which con- 
stitutes their temporal order is not any existing succession, 
but the peculiar form of their relation within the field of 
consciousness. Hence the act of consciousness by which 
relations of sequence are grasped must itself be without 
any temporal distinctions in itself ; and in this sense the 
consciousness of time is non-temporal. All knowledge of 
the past is in the present. All ideas which represent the 
past are in the present. Their actual relation in the mind 
is not a temporal one, but rather a peculiar and unpictura- 
ble order of connection, to which consciousness gives the 
form of antecedence and sequence. This does not deny 
that there may be a real temporal order in the world out- 
side of us ; it only expresses the conditions of our becom- 
ing conscious of a temporal order. 

These conditions may be summed up as follows : (1.) 
Change in consciousness ; (2.) Identity of the conscious 
subject ; (3.) A comparison of this change with the abid- 
ing subject ; (4.) A relation of the objects of experience 
under the form of antecedence and sequence. It must be 
borne in mind that these conditions decide nothing as to 
the psychological history of the idea. It is not meant that 
the idea emerges full-fledged upon the first act of compari- 
son. It is possible that sensations may come and go for 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 131 

a long time without evoking the idea ; and when it is 
evoked, it will appear, not in a general and abstract form, 
but in a concrete and confused application. But whenever 
and however it may come, it must come from within. 

Kant held that the idea of time depends on the idea of 
causation ; because a series can exist only as the position 
of its members is determined, that is, caused. There 
seems to be here a confusion of the series as occurring, 
and our temporal apprehension of it. The series as occur- 
ring is possible only through the fact of causation ; and 
our thought of it as occurring demands for its completion 
the notion of causation. But our temporal apprehension 
of the series need contain no trace of the causal idea, as 
especially appears from the fact that in inductive science 
our determination of causation is always successive to the 
determination of temporal sequence. It is the latter which 
suggests the former. 

It is important to make clear to ourselves that this 
fundamental relation of antecedence and sequence cannot 
be reached by anv process of abstraction. Objects cannot 
exist for the mind in a temporal relation until the mind 
by a special synthesis or act of relation has put them into 
temporal relations. It is this synthesis which constitutes 
the temporal series for us. Objects may possibly exist in 
time apart from our minds ; but in order to exist in time 
for us the external synthesis must be internally repro- 
duced, and this is possible only as the successive experi- 
ences excite the mind to unite them under a temporal 
form. Hence, all that the abstraction could give us would 
be the form of the synthesis after it has taken place, or 
the law which governs it. 

Psychologically, time, then, is primarily the law or prin- 
ciple which compels the mind to connect its experiences 
and all conceptions of events in general under the form of 
antecedence and sequence. Secondarily, time is the form 



132 PSYCHOLOGY. 

of this synthesis. As applying to all events alike, no mat- 
ter what their qualitative difference, this form of synthesis 
may be called universal. As belonging to the laws of the 
mind itself, it may be called apriori. At the same time it 
can have no significance apart from experience, and, like 
all mental functions, is first excited by experience. What 
we get when we drop the experienced content and seek to 
abstract the pure notion of time, is simply the law or form 
of the synthesis. This form, moreover, because applicable 
to all events, contains no limitation in itself. Like a recur- 
ring series in numbers it has no stopping place, and hence 
seems limitless. In this way the notion of time without 
beginning or end arises. No event can be conceived which 
cannot, or must not, be brought into temporal relations. 
Empty time, or pure time, is merely the phantom of this 
form of synthesis. The all-embracing time means really 
an all-embracing formula. 

The unity of time arises in the same way. All the 
objects of experience, and all events actually occurring, 
are united together in a common series ; and hence they 
are said to occur at various moments of one and the same 
time. But we often give the temporal form to mental 
objects, without thought of any relation to cosmic time. 
Thus the development of a drama, or of a story, or of our 
private castle-building, takes place under the form of time ; 
but this time of the imagination has no relation to the time 
of reality. It is the unity and continuity of the world- 
process, real or imagined, which constitutes the unity of 
time. 

Temporal relations cannot be pictured. All attempts to 
picture them rest upon misleading space images. Time is 
figured as a line, or as a moving point, and even as a limit- 
less sphere, which contains both things and events ; but 
all of these conceptions are borrowed from space, and are 
incompatible with the idea of time. All the parts of a line 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 133 

coexist; but the time line exists only in one point, the 
present. The moving point, again, implies a space in 
which to move. The spherical time coexists in all its 
parts, and thus the idea itself is denied. It only remains 
that time must be understood in terms of itself. It is the 
one bond of relation whereby all events, both in the inner 
and in the outer world, are bound together ; and the estab- 
lishment of temporal relations is one of the first steps 
toward that unification of its objects which is the supreme 
goal of intelligence. 

Psychological time may be regarded as reproducing in 
thought a temporal order objectively existing. The con- 
sideration of this question belongs to the theory of knowl- 
edge; and the nature of this objective time is a problem 
for metaphysics. 

Space is a leading category in external perception. The 
objects of perception become such only as they take on 
spatial forms and enter into spatial relations. This cate- 
gory, with its implications of extension, direction, and dis- 
tance, seems at first so clear and self-satisfying that no 
question can be raised about it. Things are in space, and 
we know them directly as such. But this self-evidence 
disappears on reflection. Things are known only through 
the sensations which they produce in us ; and how can 
we pass from these sensations to the notion of things ex- 
tended in space ? Moreover, sensations are in perpetual 
flow ; how can we pass from their constant change to the 
changeless relations of space ? Whence comes the idea of 
space ? 

Several answers are given: (1.) It is held that things 
are immediately known as extended and in space. (2.) It 
is held that the sensations themselves are extended and 
external to one another, and that we simply recognize the 
fact. From a knowledge of them as extended and mutually 
external we pass by experience to our general knowledge 



134 PSYCHOLOGY. 

of space. (3.) Space is viewed as a mental principle which 
compels the mind to give its objects space forms and space 
relations. Just as the reaction of the mind against ner- 
vous action with sensation is due to the nature of the 
mind, so the intuition of these sensations under the form 
of space is also due to the nature of the mind. (4.) The 
associationalists generally deny all of the previous views, 
and claim that the space idea is simply a consequence 
of the laws of association working over sequent sensa- 
tions. Time relations alone are primal ; space relations 
are derivative. 

This question cannot be settled by inspection. The idea 
of space, like that of time, is produced long before reflec- 
tion begins. Nor is it possible for us by any combination 
of activities to watch the actual unfolding of the idea. In 
the case of number, we can inspect the process. The men- 
tal function by which number is generated can be per- 
formed at any time ; but the birth of the space idea is 
far more obscure. Our study must necessarily be indirect, 
and must consist mainly in examining the solutions of 
the problems proposed. We begin with the associational 
theory. 

This view does not claim to recognize space relations in 
the sensations, or in their relations as states of conscious- 
ness, but seeks to deduce them from simple experiences of 
sequence. Herbart in Germany and the sensationalists in 
England have both claimed that a being capable of having 
sensations and representations in time must develop the 
idea of space. It is not always plain whether the deduc- 
tions are meant to explain a knowledge of space as a 
reality, or only the development of the idea from non- 
spatial elements without any reference to its objective 
reality or ideality. In fact the sensationalists differ on 
this point. Some are pronounced idealists, and deny the 
reality of space altogether ; others allow its reality, either 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 135 

in a knowable or unknowable form. The average sensa- 
tionalist rarely raises the ontological question, but confines 
himself to showing, as he conceives, the true origin of the 
idea of space. But, with all these ontological differences, 
their psychological theory is essentially the same. As 
good an argument as any for their view is the following, 
by Mr. J. S. Mill. 

" Suppose," he says, " two small bodies, A and B, suffi- 
ciently near together to admit of their being touched simul- 
taneously, one with the right hand, the other with the left. 
Here are two tactual sensations which are simultaneous, 
just as a sensation of color and one of odor might be ; and 
this makes us cognize the two objects of touch as both ex- 
isting at once. The question then is, What have we in our 
minds when we represent to ourselves the relation between 
these two objects, already known to be simultaneous, in 
the form of extension or intervening space, — a relation 
which we do not suppose to exist between the color and 
the odor?" Mill next points out that the peculiarity is that 
in passing from A to B a series of muscular sensations 
must intervene, and continues : " When we say that there 
is a space between A and B, we mean that some amount 
of these muscular sensations must intervene ; and when we 
say that the space is greater or less, we mean that the 
series of sensations (amount of muscular effort being given) 
is longer or shorter." 

" The theory may be recapitulated as follows : The sensa- 
tion of muscular motion unimpeded constitutes our notion 
of empty space, and the sensation of muscular motion im- 
peded constitutes that of filled space. Space is Room, — 
room for movement ; which its German name, Raum, dis- 
tinctly confirms. We have a sensation which accompanies 
the free movement of our organs, say, for instance, of our 
arm. This sensation is variously modified by the direction 
and by the amount of the movement. We have different 



136 PSYCHOLOGY. 

states of muscular sensation corresponding to the move- 
ments of the arm upward, downward, to right, to left, or in 
any radius whatever of a sphere of which the joint that 
the arm revolves around forms the centre. We have also 
different states of muscular sensation, according as the arm 
is moved more, whether this consists in its being moved 
with greater velocity, or with the same velocity during a 
longer time ; and the equivalence of these two is speedily 
learned by experience. These different kinds and qualities 
of muscular sensation experienced in getting from one 
point to another (that is, obtaining in succession two sensa- 
tions of touch and resistance, the objects of which are re- 
garded as simultaneous) are all we mean by saying that 
the points are separated by spaces, that they are at differ- 
ent distances, and in different directions. ... It appears 
to me that this doctrine is sound, and that the muscular 
sensations in question are the sources of all the notion of 
extension which we should ever obtain from the tactual 
and muscular senses without the assistance of the eye." : 

This argument has been given at much greater length by 
other writers, especially by Bain and Spencer, yet with- 
out adding anything to its real strength. In particular, 
attention has been called to the possibility of association 
between the various series of sensation, visual, tactual, and 
muscular, so as to produce a coexistence of different orders 
of sensation as well as a coexistence of sensations of the 
same class. But these suggestions only make it easier to 
confuse ourselves ; they in no way advance the argument. 
We begin with a criticism of Mill. 

There is a fundamental unclearness running through this 
exposition which makes it uncertain whether these sensa- 
tions are the idea of space, or produce it. Both possibilities 
run along in indefinite oscillation, so that either seems to 

1 Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 280- 
282. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 137 

be on the point of becoming the other. We must discuss 
them separately. 

No sensations, muscular or otherwise, are capable of 
originating the space idea. The apparent success of Mill's 
attempt is due entirely to the space implications of the 
terms used. Thus we have " direction," " movement," 
"velocity," "upward," "downward," "right," and "left." 
A and B, also, are spoken of as coexistent bodies, and 
sufficiently near together to be touched by each of our 
hands respectively at the same time; and we are supposed 
to pass back and forth from one to the other. Of course, if 
all of these terms are understood in their spatial signifi- 
cance, it would be very easy to deduce the idea from the 
experience described, for we should have the idea already 
in a state of high development. If now we do not propose 
to beg the question, we must carefully eliminate all these 
terms. We know nothing of movement, or velocity, or 
direction. We must not assume that A and B coexist in 
space or in mutual externality ; for this would beg the 
question. Coexistent and sequent sensations, like or un- 
like, are all that is given. If there be sensations attending 
movement and change of direction and velocity, they are 
not yet interpreted by the notions of movement, direction, 
and velocity ; all this is to be deduced. Hence, when we 
speak of passing from A, all we can mean is that the sen- 
sation A ceases to exist, and our return to A can only 
mean the recurrence of a similar sensation. To assume 
that it is a movement to and from a fixed object, A, which 
coexists with another fixed object, B, and which is external 
to it, would beg the question. We should be seeking to 
deduce the idea of space from muscular sensations, which, 
however, arise from certain movements known as move- 
ments between two bodies known to coexist in mutual 
externality. It would be strange, indeed, if such a deduc- 
tion were not victoriously successful. But when we are 



138 PSYCHOLOGY. 

careful to deny ourselves the luxury of begging the ques- 
tion, it turns out that we never get beyond coexistent and 
sequent sensations in time. 

Nor are we in any way helped by the suggestion that 
association may unite various temporal series together, so 
that the tactual, the visual, and the muscular series may 
even seem to coexist in consciousness, and to have lost their 
sequent character altogether. Such coexistence is still a 
temporal coexistence. Of course, after long dwelling upon 
this coexistence, we might suddenly remember that space 
itself is an order of coexistence, and fancy the problem 
solved. But verbal ambiguity solves nothing. 

Another suggestion is, that some temporal series admit 
of inversion; and thus we reach a differentiation of the 
spatial from the temporal. Thus, by turning our eyes from 
right to left, we get a given series of sensations ; by turning 
them from left to right, we get the same series reversed. 
The same is true for touch. We can touch a series of 
objects in a given order, and then reverse it. But this 
reversibility is what distinguishes the spatial series from 
the temporal. Unfortunately, this inversion is impossible 
without the space idea ; or rather, such inversion as is pos- 
sible in a time series is of no use in reaching a space series. 
In such a case we have no turning back of the temporal 
series upon itself, but simply a repetition in the series of 
sensations similar to those which occurred before, and in 
an inverted order, as when we sing the scale up and down ; 
but the temporal series goes ever onward and never back- 
ward. Singing the scale up and down forever has nothing 
in it to turn a temporal into a spatial order. The cloud of 
words may be never so great or so dense, yet, after all, 
when the question is not begged, we do not advance one 
step beyond temporally coexistent and sequent sensations. 
There is nothing to do but to admit that the space order 
cannot be deduced from the time order, or else to identify 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOK. 139 

the space order with certain forms of our temporal and 
sensational experience. 

This is the other view mentioned as contained in Mill's 
argument. " When we say that there is a space between 
A and B, we mean that some amount of these muscular 
sensations must intervene." This would imply, not that 
muscular sensations produce the idea of space, but that, 
when associated, certain tactual sensations are the idea of 
space. This is the utterance of despair. The idea of space 
refuses to be identified in any way with any kind or amount 
of sensation. Sensations may serve as a measure of space, 
and they may furnish the conditions under which the idea 
is educed ; but no identification is possible. To see this, 
one need only attempt to enunciate a geometrical proposi- 
tion in terms of sensation. Thus, that the square on the 
hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other 
two sides, would be fairly hard to translate into terms of 
the relations of different groups of sensations. A geometri- 
cal representation of the square root of two is not hard to 
understand in space terms ; but it would require the greatest 
penetration to identify it with sundry temporal sensations, 
whether coexistent or successive. 

There is plainly no hope of deriving the idea of space 
from sensations which merely coexist, or succeed one an- 
other, in time, and it is plainly absurd to identify space 
with sensation ; but a third possibility remains. We may 
suppose that the ideas, instead of mechanically cohering, 
chemically modify one another, and thus produce a mental 
result quite unlike its antecedents or components. There 
is a chemistry of ideas which produces, not merely external 
juxtaposition, but qualitative transformation. The follow- 
ing difficulties exist in this view : — 

1. The chemistry of ideas is a happy phrase, which ex- 
presses the theory so effectively that there has been a sur- 
prising failure to show that it is anything more than a 



140 PSYCHOLOGY. 

phrase. In truth, however, there is no corresponding fact. 
The chemistry required is one which would modify, not the 
psychological completeness or intensity of the mental func- 
tion, but the logical content of the idea ; one, for instance, 
which could turn a sensation of color into a sensation of 
odor, or the thought of a triangle into the idea of justice. 
The only illustration ever discovered of this extraordinary 
process was mentioned by James Mill, and it has been hard 
worked ever since. This is the case of white light, which 
is supposed to result from the fusion of the other color 
sensations. Unfortunately, this fusion does not take place 
in consciousness, but in the nerves. The several nerve 
processes unite into a resultant process which has white 
light for its sensational attendant, just as other processes 
have other colors for their sensational attendant. And 
even if this were not the case, we should be no better off ; 
for this fusion does not give us a new class of sensations, 
but only another sensation in a class already experienced. 
We conclude, then, that there is no such chemistry as the 
theory demands ; and if there were, it would bring our 
thinking to an end. Thought rests, as we have seen, upon 
the fact that the logical contents of ideas shall remain 
unchanged in consciousness. 

2. Further, allowing such a chemistry, how shall we in- 
terpret it ? Even chemistry knows nothing of the change 
of one simple element into another, but only of the union 
of simple elements into molecules. The elements do not 
produce a molecule as something distinct from themselves, 
but a certain grouping of elements is a molecule. Follow- 
ing this analogy, then, we should have to say that simple 
sensations may be combined into mental molecules which 
represent new ideas. At the same time, the simple sensa- 
tions exist in, and constitute, the mental molecule. They 
do not produce it as something distinct from themselves, 
but a certain combination of temporal sensations is the 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 141 

new idea. Thus the attempt to follow out the chemical 
analogy brings us out where we went in. By hypothesis, 
the only elements in combination are temporal sensations ; 
and the analogy appealed to compels us to say that a cer- 
tain grouping of these sensations is the idea of space. It 
might also be difficult to work the theory without assuming 
special affinities in the sensations for the peculiar form of 
synthesis supposed to result. A universal synthesis like 
that of space cannot, of course, be referred to accident ; 
and if the sensations always take on this form there seems 
no way of explaining it except by assuming some occult 
affinity in the sensations themselves for this peculiar form. 
This would differ from the Kantian view only in the loca- 
tion of this determining principle. Kant would put it in 
the mental nature itself, where it would be of some service, 
while this view would put it in the sensations, where it 
would be of no use ; for the utmost such a principle could 
do would be to bring the sensations into relations ; it could 
never account for our knowledge of them in those relations; 
and this is the knot of the problem. 

We shall never get on unless we allow the sensations to 
produce new ideas. We may conceive this production in 
two ways. When the sensations a, b, e, c?, etc. have come 
to coexist in consciousness, we may suppose (1.) that a, 
b, c, etc. disappear, and are replaced by S; or (2.) that S 
arises in consciousness when a, b, <?, etc. are given, yet 
without displacing them. But in neither of these cases do 
a, b, e, etc. appear as the sufficient ground of #, but rather 
as the conditions under which the mind produces the new 
idea S. For a, b, c, etc. are not things, but mental states ; 
and the fact that they exist in the mind can never be a 
reason for the occurrence of anything new, unless we as- 
sume a complex mental nature, which causes the mind to 
react upon them with the new and peculiar function S. 
The sensations themselves are subject to the law of iden- 



142 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tity ; and the ground and direction of their movement must 
be sought in the soul itself. But this leads us out into the 
apriori view, that the space idea results from some special 
principle within the soul itself, and not from any interaction 
of sensation. 

The association of temporal elements will not give us 
space. The alleged deductions of the idea are sorry 
enough. They owe their force either to the space terms 
employed, such as movement, velocity, and direction, or 
to ambiguous terms, which may be referred to either space 
or time. Examples are " coexistence," " series," " posi- 
tion," " coexistent positions," and " serial lengths." These 
are above all price in the deduction. By hypothesis, their 
temporal significance is the only one employed ; but the 
spatial meaning gets itself recognized betimes. It is on 
this broad neutral field of verbal ambiguity that the trans- 
formation of time into space occurs. 

The construction of the space idea from temporal ele- 
ments is a failure. We have next to consider the claim 
that sensations themselves are extended and mutually ex- 
ternal. This curious view arises from confounding sen- 
sations as mental acts or functions with sensations as 
objects. After our sensations are referred to the sur- 
face of the body, or to different parts of the body, or to a 
world of external things, it does not seem absurd to speak 
of them as extended and spatially related. But until this 
objective reference is made, the sensations show no signs 
of spatial properties. As mental states, they are neither 
before nor behind, neither above nor below one another. 
No more are they round, or square, or crooked, or cubical. 
These spatial relations and qualities have significance only 
as applied to objects, and not to sensations. The identifi- 
cation of sensations as acts with sensations as objects, is 
like the identification of our ideas as mental acts with the 
objects meant. We must say, however, that the thought 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 143 

of sugar is not sweet, that of vinegar is not sour, that of 
the triangle is not three-cornered, and that of size or form 
has neither size nor form. The only intelligible meaning 
of this view is, that our sensations make us immediately 
cognizant of extension, not in themselves, however, but in 
the organism, or in extra-organic objects. In this form 
the view does not differ psychologically from the common 
view, and may be criticised along with it. 

We return to the view of common sense, according to 
which things are extended and in space, and are immedi- 
ately known as such. If this were admitted, it would not 
solve the question of the psychological origin of the notion 
of space, or of how our knowledge of this real space arises. 
The mere existence of a thing does not explain our percep- 
tion of it ; and this implies the further statement, that the 
existence of a thing as such or such does not explain our 
perception of it as such or such. To be perceived, a thing 
must act upon us ; and to be perceived as this or that, it 
must act upon us in a manner corresponding thereto. But 
space itself and space relations do not act upon us ; only 
things can do that. Hence, our knowledge of space and 
space relations must depend on the activities of things. 
But whoever will consider the physiological processes 
which mediate perception will see that they have no like- 
ness to the things and space relations which we are sup- 
posed to perceive through them. They are as little alike 
as the written word is like the idea, or as the electric 
changes in the wire are like the message sent. Hence, if 
there is to be a recovery of the original forms of external 
existence, it can only be as the nervous processes affect the 
mind, and cause it to read them back into their objective 
meaning. But this mental reconstruction must be accord- 
ing to laws inherent in the mind ; for the raw material is 
totally unlike the pattern according to which it is to be 
woven, and the mind has nothing but this raw material 



144 PSYCHOLOGY. 

and itself. The immediate antecedents of perception are 
totally unlike the things and relations perceived. Hence, 
if the mind had no inherent tendency to bring certain of its 
objects into space forms and space relations, the knowledge 
could never arise, no matter how real space might be. 

To escape this admission, various devices are resorted to. 
Thus, the claim is made that the extension of the body 
implies necessarily the perception of extension. When, 
then, the branching of the nerves over a certain surface of 
the body is shown, as in the eye, and skin, and nerves of 
touch, this is supposed to explain at once the knowledge 
of extension. This view has the following difficulties : — 

1. Our perception of extension is never of the extension 
of the nerves, either of their inner or outer endings. If 
our perception of color were really a perception of the 
packed rods and cones of the retina, the sensation would 
be coarse-grained and discontinuous to correspond ; and 
the blind spot would appear in the extended color. 

2. The external arrangement of the retinal picture is 
entirely lost, so far as we can see, in the optic nerve ; and 
there is not the slightest ground for supposing that it is 
ever restored. The picture formed on the retina is not 
transmitted to the brain. Of the space relations of the 
central elements whose action mediates vision, we know 
nothing. The same is true for the other senses. The 
peripheral arrangements of parts finds no reproduction in 
the central organs ; and if it did, we should have the same 
coarse-grainedness of extension which we should have from 
an immediate consciousness of the retina. There is no 
absolutely continuous extension in reality, whether of the 
nerves or of extra-organic objects. 

3. But, overlooking these difficulties, we are no nearer 
the idea of extension than before. We have simply the 
perennial confusion of existence in relations with a knowl- 
edge of the relations. On the theory, we should have sim- 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 145 

ply a lot of nerve-endings side by side. But since we know 
nothing of these nerve-endings except very indirectly, and, 
in fact, know almost nothing of them in any way, it would 
be absurd to try to derive our knowledge of extension from 
the knowledge of their extension. And yet the fact of their 
extension in space can be no reason why a knowledge of 
their extension should arise in the spaceless field of con- 
sciousness. Their effect upon the mind is not extended, 
but varies only in quality, intensity, and duration. These, 
however, are not extension ; they can only furnish the in- 
citement for its mental development. 

Relief has been sought from this difficulty in the notion 
that the mind itself is extended. Some have supposed that 
the mind, as a kind of ethereal essence, fills out the body, 
and comes in direct contact with the surface of things. 
Others think that the extended nervous surface, at least, is 
connected with an extension of the soul. In both cases, 
the physical extension acts upon a mental extension, and 
thus the mystery is solved. Some have even gone so far 
as to affirm, that a perception of the extended by the un- 
extended is a contradiction. This final fancy rests on the 
whim that the perceptive act has the properties of the 
thing perceived. The thought of extension is extended, 
and hence the soul must be extended to hold it. Of course, 
the thought of infinite space must be very bulky, and the 
mind must be correspondingly large to contain it. Apart 
from this whimsey, the doctrine only helps the imagination. 
When we suppose a series of impressions on an extended 
soul, it seems as if the mystery were explained. But, first, 
we know nothing of such impressions ; and, second, if such 
impressions existed, the knowledge of them in their space 
relations would not be explained. Space relations can ex- 
ist for knowledge only as the mind brings its objects into 
those relations. Just as a special synthesis is needed to 
bring out the idea of time, so also another special synthesis 

10 



146 PSYCHOLOGY. 

is needed to bring out the idea of space, and to put objects 
into space relations. 

' The view we are criticising rests also on the assumption 
that extension is an idea which can be passively imported 
into the mind without any constructive activity on the part 
of the mind. But in truth all perception of extension rests 
on a synthesis of parts. The parts may exist in objective 
synthesis, they can be known as spatial only through a sub- 
jective synthesis corresponding thereto. When the object 
is large, we can detect this activity very clearly. Then 
our vision runs around the object, drawing its outline, and 
gathering up the successive steps in a single form and 
image. Nor can there be here any thought of a simple 
gaze at a physiological image, for no such thing exists for 
consciousness at all. The extension we see is the exten- 
sion we construct. 

But even this need not be insisted upon. We may admit 
that the mind has a direct experience of extension in sense 
experience and even an experience of extended objects, and 
we should still not be in possession of the idea of space ; 
and if this were all, we should never reach it. For this 
idea embraces not merely the extension of separate objects, 
but also, and more especially, the relating of these objects 
in a common space. It is this vast network of relations 
among objects and positions in space which constitutes 
the essential content of the idea of space. Objects may 
suggest their existence, but they are not necessary to their 
existence ; and after the mind has come into possession of 
the space idea, it can develop out of itself myriads of ideal 
relations which have never been realized. Now the simple 
experience of extended objects contains no account of this. 
There would be nothing in such experience to bring those 
objects into further relations. They would be alike as to 
extension, but they would not exist in a common space. 
The bare fact of being all extended would be compatible 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 147 

with existence in separate and incommensurable spaces ; 
just as the products of imagination and dreams exist in 
unrelated spaces. Nor can they come into a common space 
until the mind brings them into it. By its unifying and 
co-ordinating activity it must assign each object its place 
in a system of space relations ; and until this is done, 
thought has not reached the unity and community of 
space. We know that all things are in one space, only 
because we relate all our objects in a common scheme of 
intuition, and according to a common rule. This locating 
and co-ordinating of its objects in a common intuition ac- 
cording to a common principle is the essential space activity 
of the soul ; and it is the expression of an inherent mental 
principle, which the mind brings to its objects rather than 
finds in them. And, as we have just said, after the mind 
is in possession of the space intuition, it may proceed in 
entire abstraction from all objects, on the basis simply of 
its own conceptions and intuitions. In this way the sci- 
ence of geometry in all its forms is built up. The propo- 
sitions of this science are not learned from experience nor 
can they be tested by experience. They are evolved from 
pure spatial intuitions and are tested by the same. 

This conception of the space activity as a peculiar form 
of relating a plurality of objects throws further doubt on 
the assumed possibility of a simple, or passive, conscious- 
ness of extension. For if the notion of extension involves 
a relation of different parts as inner and outer, right and 
left, top and bottom, or a distinction of points as adjacent 
and separate, then consciousness of extension is impossible 
without a special relating activity of the mind. 

The difficulty with the associational theory is, that it 
either begs the question, or else, instead of deducing the 
idea of space, calls certain associations of temporal sensa- 
tions space. The difficulty with the common-sense theory 
is, that it assumes that the existence of extension in the 



148 PSYCHOLOGY. 

organism and in external objects accounts for our knowl- 
edge of the same, and overlooks the fact that objects can 
exist in space relations for the mind only as the mind 
brings them into such relations. That which makes the 
common view so clear is the complete oversight of all the 
conditions of perception, especially of the fact that percep- 
tion is mediated by a complex and highly mysterious ner- 
vous activity, in which no trace of likeness can be found, 
on the one hand, to the external things and their relations, 
and, on the other, to the resulting knowledge. In the fail- 
ure of these views we turn to the theory which holds that 
the origin of the idea of space is not to be sought in sensa- 
tion or in sense experience, but rather in the nature of the 
mind itself. 

This view regards our sensations, considered as mental 
states, as having no spatial properties whatever. However 
produced, they differ in themselves only in quality, inten- 
sity, duration, and time of occurrence. As in painting, 
distance, size, and the third dimension are replaced by 
light, shade, and perspective ; or as in actual perception, 
the same elements of distance, etc. are replaced by vary- 
ing shades of color and clearness of outline ; so in this 
theory, all spatial relations vanish from the sensations, and 
are replaced by varying shades of quality and intensity of 
sensation. In the case of the picture the shaded pigments 
lead the mind to construct the object ; and this it does so 
spontaneously that we seem to see the very object itself. 
It requires more effort to see what the eyes really give, 
namely, a mass of colors on a flat surface, than to see the 
spatial significance of the whole. In the case of percep- 
tion, again, the spatial interpretation is so rapid and spon- 
taneous that we seem to see size and distance immediately ; 
and it even requires a considerable power of analysis to see 
that this is not the case. What is partially true in these 
cases is regarded as strictly true in the theory in question. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 149 

Space relations of every kind are replaced by non-spatial 
representatives. These, however, excite the mind to give 
to its objects space forms and relations, just as the light 
and shade on the canvas excite it to construct for itself 
, the corresponding objects under the forms and relations 
of space. But just as the light and shade in the picture 
can never take on their objective significance again unless 
an interpreting mind appear, so also these non-spatial quali- 
ties of sensation will never again acquire a spatial signifi- 
cance unless the mind whose states they are gives it to 
them by projecting them as objects under the forms of 
space. 

What is the essential element in this process ? In our 
mature thought, we possess the idea of one all-embracing 
space ; and all space terms seem to imply this as their 
condition, or to be specifications under it. Nevertheless, 
we must regard this idea as second, and not first. The 
essential factor is the synthesis of objects in space relations 
without any original reference to the unity or infinity of 
space. Space may be one and infinite, but it is not origi- 
nally given as such. We begin by representing space only 
in such extension as our actual sense experience calls for, 
and it is only at a later peried that the conception of the 
unity and infinity of space arises. The form and law of 
the synthesis are first ; the unity is even conditional upon 
the nature of the object. The spaces in which dream 
objects appear have nothing in common with real space or 
with one another. So also the space in which imagination 
constructs its objects is not a part of the space in which 
we suppose the real world to exist. I may represent suc- 
cessively a series of geometrical figures in thought, but they 
exist in no common space, and least of all in the space of 
external perception. Here we see the form and law of spa- 
tial synthesis active, yet without any suggestion of either 
unity or infinity. Kant's claim that all spaces must be 



150 PSYCHOLOGY. 

conceived as parts of one and the same space, is true only 
for the space in which I posit real objects ; and then the 
unity is due to the unity of the mental activity. The mind 
relates all its objects in space forms and relations ; and 
hence, whenever a new object or point or place is posited, 
it is related to the others. In this way the sum of objects 
is related in a single system, in which it is possible to pass 
from any one to any other, and in which every object has 
its special position and relation with reference to all the 
rest. It is this possibility of bringing all its objects into 
a single system of relations which constitutes the psycho- 
logical unity of space and the ground for affirming its real 
unity in objective existence. Further, this positing of points 
is possible in all directions ; and thus arises the conception 
of space equally extended on all sides. There is, too, no 
reason why the positing of points should cease at any point 
whatever. The process admits of indefinite repetition ; and 
thus arises the notion of space extended indefinitely on all 
sides. The infinity of space, like the infinity of number, 
depends on the impossibility of exhausting the processes 
on which the ideas depend. An infinite space cannot be 
represented ; and an infinite number cannot be reached. 
Yet while any represented space, or any actual number, 
is finite, neither exhausts the process which produced it ; 
on the contrary, the process is inexhaustible. Psychologi- 
cally, the infinitude of space, time, and number is but the 
reflection of a mental process which admits of no exhaus- 
tion, something like a recurring series in division which 
always has a remainder and calls for a continuance of the 
division. 

This view includes two factors, (1.) a principle of syn- 
thesis or a law according to which the mind relates its 
objects ; (2.) an intuition of the results of this synthetic 
activity. That is, space exists as principle and appears as 
a product. As product space appears as an all-containing 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 151 

void, in which all things coexist in space relations. These 
actual relations, however, do not exhaust the possible re- 
lations; and this void is simply the vague synthesis in 
thought of all relations, real and possible. When we say 
that things are in space, we merely mean that they exist 
in space relations ; and when we say that things cannot 
exist out of space, that means that we cannot perceive 
objects without establishing space relations among them. 
In number, when we abstract from real things, we come 
down to the pure form of numerical function ; so in space, 
when we abstract from real objects, we come down to the 
pure forms of the spatial function. This function may 
proceed on the basis of its own constructions without any 
reference to reality, and thus determine the pure relations 
of space. To do this is the function of geometry. 

Although space is an apriori contribution of the mind, it 
is still possible that the external experience may not only 
serve to elicit it, but also to determine its character to some 
extent. All our sensations are purely mental reactions, 
and yet their nature is partly dependent on the object. It 
is, then, conceivable that our conception of space is not 
purely a mental product, but one which depends on the 
nature of experience. Out of this thought have arisen the 
various schemes of transcendental geometry, and the sug- 
gestion that space in itself may have altogether different 
properties from those which we attribute to it. 

To this it may be answered, that space in its geometrical 
properties is altogether indifferent to the nature of the 
objects. The system of space relations is one and change^ 
less, no matter what the objects. Besides, our geometric|l 
study goes on in complete abstraction from all objects, 
dealing only with space intuitions themselves. There is, 
then, nothing known to suggest the thought that a change 
in experience would modify space principles. 

The transcendental geometry is properly nothing but an 



152 PSYCHOLOGY. 

analysis of assumed conditions, and says nothing about the 
possibility of spatially representing its conclusions. The 
argument is, that, if space had n dimensions, certain propo- 
sitions would be true ; but it does not follow that they are 
true until space has been shown to have n dimensions. In 
the same way we might construct a geometry of the square 
circle. Assuming a square circle, we might deduce various 
propositions; but that would hardly prove that square cir- 
cles are possible. Both geometries would be of equal value, 
and both would rest upon the fact that language enables us 
to construct phrases for which there is no corresponding 
thought. 

Not all sensations are equally adapted to excite the mind 
to a spatial representation of its objects. The most effect- 
ive are those connected with touch and vision; and it may 
be doubted whether many of our sensations originally had 
any spatial reference. It is not difficult, even now, to ab- 
stract the sound of a piece of music from all spatial rela- 
tions, and enjoy it in its purely qualitative significance. 
This question of the development of space knowledge will 
come up again in treating of the process of perception. 

In one respect our conception is affected by experience. 
One visual experience doubtless gives space a certain look 
because of the connection established thereby between its 
extension and the sensations of color, which it could not 
have for the blind. The eye, also, enables us to grasp in 
a single act a large number of objects and their, space 
relations which we might find it impossible to represent 
with any such clearness without its assistance. On this 
account many have affirmed that the blind can have no 
proper idea of space, and that time takes the place of 
space with them. This claim is sufficiently disproved by 
the existence of blind geometricians, a fact which would 
not be possible if they had not pure spatial intuitions. We 
cannot say, then, that our knowledge of geometrical rela- 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 153 

tions is dependent on vision, but we may well believe that, 
without the experience of color, and the power of the eye 
to present a multitude of coexisting objects before the 
mind, the look of space would be very different, and our 
conception of the system of existing relations would be far 
more incomplete. 

To the question why the mind views its objects under 
the form of space, the answer has often been given that the 
mind views its objects in space because they are in space. 
This is the common-sense view. Its inadequacy has been 
seen. The associationalist replies, by seeking to show that 
the sensations themselves must lead to the idea of space. 
This reply also we have found insufficient. The final con- 
clusion is, that space is a mental principle, which compels 
the mind to give its objects spatial forms and relations. 
Of course this merely affirms a fact without deducing it ; 
but not every fact can be deduced. The attempts to deduce 
the idea of space deserve to be ranked with the attempts to 
square the circle and invent perpetual motion. 

Number is the next relation which we mention. This is 
pre-eminently the outcome of a mental activity. There 
is no other form of activity in which the mind is so con- 
sciously master of itself and of its processes as in this. 
It involves (1.) the establishment of a unit, and (2.) a 
process of counting. 

Of course sensationalism has sought to deduce this idea 
as a simple consequence of sense experience ; and at first 
glance the attempt would seem to be successful. Number 
seems to adhere so closely to the objects that to know 
them seems to be the same as knowing their number. 
Yet this, again, is only the old error which identifies plu- 
rality in experience with experience of plurality. The 
very utmost that could be allowed would be that unity 
inheres in the object ; the conception of plurality arises 
only as the mind takes the separate units together. Until 



154 PSYCHOLOGY. 

this is done, we have not number, but the unit repeated; the 
countable, but not the counted. Each object may be one ; 
but no object is two or three, etc. The clock may strike 
one repeatedly, but by no possibility can it do more. Our 
ears might give us the separate strokes, but they cannot 
hear their number. Hence we pass from units to number 
only by a process of counting, or of adding unit to unit. 
Number is no property of things in themselves, but only of 
things as united by the, mind in numerical relations. 

Nor can we allow that unity attaches to the sense object. 
The mind establishes its own unit, as appears from the 
fact that the same object may be one or many, according 
to the unit which the mind adopts. If, then, the sense 
impression may remain the same, and the numerical value 
be variously conceived, it is clear that there is something 
beyond the sensation in question. In fact the object is 
neither one nor many until the mind has fixed its unit of 
measure. The length of a yardstick is no more one than 
it is three or thirty-six. It may be any of these according 
as we make the unit a yard, or a foot, or an inch. Hence 
the single sense impression does not constitute itself a unit 
any more than several such impressions constitute them- 
selves a number. The unity comes, not from the sensation 
itself, but from the nature of thought as a discriminating 
activity. In every act of discrimination the discriminated 
objects are set apart, each by itself, as a self-identical 
unit. It is this discriminating process which determines 
what the units shall be ; and the units will be various 
according to the fineness, or according to the purpose, of 
the distinction. In a library, a book is a unit. In a book, 
a page or a chapter may be a unit. In either of these, 
again, words or sentences or paragraphs may be units ; 
and, finally, the letters themselves may be taken as units. 
In many cases, as in most scientific measurements, the 
units are purely arbitrary. Thus the unit of work, the 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 155 

unit of temperature, the unit of distance, not only do not 
determine themselves, but their determination is a matter 
of great difficulty. Any distinguishable mental act or state 
may be constituted a unit, and a plurality of these may 
furnish the conditions for the development of the whole 
science of number. 

Again, number involves, not only discrimination, but as- 
similation. Number applies only to the members of a com- 
mon class. This class may consist of external objects, or 
of internal states ; but nowhere does the idea of number 
arise, until the numerated objects have been brought under 
some single point of view, or into a common class. 

All that can be allowed for sense experience is that it 
constantly furnishes us with discriminable objects of ex- 
perience, and these may act as a stimulus to the mind to 
perform its function of numeration, or to develop its numer- 
ical activity. We may also allow that this function begins 
only crudely and obscurely ; but whenever and however it 
begins, it is something forever distinct from any passive 
affection of the sensibility. Moreover, when this function 
is once developed, it quickly outruns any possible experi- 
ence, sensational or otherwise. When the beginning is 
once made, thereafter the mind is purely spontaneous. It 
creates its own data and processes and problems, and 
tests them all by its own insight. Indeed, there is no 
other test possible. Experience could never decide as to 
the correctness of a logarithm, or differential formula. 
This can be dene only by the mind itself reviewing its 
processes and scrutinizing their various steps. One would 
think, on reading the arguments for the empirical origin of 
number, that their authors had never heard of numbers 
larger than ten, and had never heard at all of the various 
forms of numerical science. It would be interesting to see 
the physical source of any large number, and to note the 
physical difference between it and the similar representa- 



156 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tive of the same number plus or minus one. It would be 
equally interesting to see the physical prototype of a loga- 
rithm, a differential coefficient, the root of a surd quantity. 
It is very doubtful if we should recognize these rare objects, 
even if we should happen upon them. None of these no- 
tions are abstracted from physical experience. They are 
rather spontaneous products of the mind, according to laws 
native to itself. Thus large numbers are developed and 
dealt with with perfect certainty. Thus also the science of 
arithmetic, of algebra, of the calculus, is built up. Experi- 
ence is so far from being the source of these sciences, that it 
cannot even test them after they are developed. For both 
origin and proof the mind has no resource beyond itself. 

Number has been called the science of pure time. 
This was due to the fact that sequence incessantly fur- 
nishes us with examples of difference, and thus furnishes 
the conditions for the development of the numerical ac- 
tivity. But the sequence as such is irrelevant to the 
matter. It is the discrimination which is essential, and 
this would be as effective if the discriminated objects were 
in space, or simply coexisted in consciousness, as if they 
were in time. Number applies equally to all discriminable 
objects, no matter whether their differences are in space, 
or time, or degree, or consciousness. Number is the great 
measurer ; that is, all quantity, whether in the form of 
extension, or duration, or intensity of action, or degree of 
a quality, can be expressed only in terms of number. The 
numerical function is purely formal in a double sense ; 
(1.) it can be performed with reference to any experiential 
content whatever ; and (2.) it can even be performed upon 
data which itself produces. It is only in this second sense 
that number is abstract. This does not mean that number 
is reached by abstraction ; but that the numerical process 
can go on in abstraction from all concrete objects upon the 
basis of data which the mind spontaneously creates out of 
itself. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 157 

The relations thus far dealt with are formal and logical, 
and do not necessarily imply any objects beyond the sub- 
jective states and conceptions of the mind. With these 
ideas of likeness, of coexistence and sequence, of spatial 
and numerical relations, it would be possible for the mind 
to get a very accurate knowledge of its inner experiences, 
and of the order among its states. Its sensations and 
feelings and objects might be classed, and the finest sense 
for their agreements and differences might exist. The 
order of their coexistence and sequence might also be most 
accurately determined, and they might also be objectified 
to thought under the form of space, as in imagination and 
dream. In this way it would be possible for the mind to 
read its past and to previse its future with the utmost 
accuracy. Given sensations would be the signs of others, 
and past and future alike might be explored. Understand- 
ing by phenomenon a spatial synthesis and projection of 
sense qualities, we may say that a complete science of phe- 
nomena in their coexistences and sequences and in the laws 
of their occurrence, would be possible. But there would 
be nothing in such a state to lead the mind to transcend 
itself. Its knowledge would be of its own states and 
ideas, their likeness and differences and the order of their 
succession. In order to pass beyond the subjective circle 
into an independent world of reality, we must have recourse 
to the metaphysical elements of thought. These consist 
especially in the metaphysical relations of substance and 
attribute, cause and effect. Only by means of these can 
we transcend ourselves and reach a world of objects. Our 
sensations are not merely known as states of ourselves; 
they arc also referred to external things, either as their 
effects or as their properties. In this activity the mind 
establishes the relations of cause and effect, and of sub- 
stance and attribute. 

Metaphysics finds reasons for saying that the ideas of 



158 PSYCHOLOGY. 

cause and substance are but different sides of the same 
thing, — that substance can only be viewed as cause, and 
that cause must be regarded as substance. Nevertheless, 
though both ideas enter into the notion of reality, in their 
actual use they each denote a special element which de- 
serves to be considered by itself. Our inquiry concerns 
not the metaphysical applications of these ideas, many of 
which are mistaken, but rather their psychological origin 
and logical function. If it should turn out that many 
things which we are accustomed to regard as substances 
are really only phenomena in the sense just explained, that 
would only concern the metaphysical application, and not 
the mental function, of the idea. In fact, the origin and 
function of the idea remain the same, even if its objective 
validity be denied. 

By substance is meant reality in reference to its attri- 
butes. By cause is meant reality in reference to its 
activities. For certain attributes, or qualities, the mind 
posits a real subject which has them. This is conceived 
as the ground of their existence, and as the abiding prin- 
ciple of unity among them. The several attributes of a 
thing are not supposed to coexist in mutual indifference, 
but to be bound together by some real principle of unity, 
which determines both their coexistence and the order of 
their succession. In the external world the notion of sub- 
stance is represented by the notion of thing; in the in- 
ternal world, by the notion of soul and spirit. Both alike 
are conceived of as the real subject of their attributes, 
and as the principle of unity among them. Here we reach 
another of the great battle-fields of psychology. 

That the idea of substance cannot be derived from the 
senses is evident, and for the reason that the senses do 
not reach the idea. The eye gives colors, the ear gives 
sounds, etc. The idea of substance is something which 
the mind brings into its sense experiences for their ex- 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 159 

planation. Sensations may be experienced, and they may 
even be projected as spatial syntheses of qualities, or phe- 
nomena, so as to look like the world of real things ; but 
there is nothing in this to suggest the notion of an abid- 
ing and identical reality behind the phenomena as their 
ground. This idea can get into the experience only as the 
mind brings it in. 

To see this, let us inquire what the senses could give us 
if the mind had only the principles of space and time as 
the laws of its activity. Take the case of a moving body. 
In such a case, we should have a succession of nearly sim- 
ilar optical phenomena at successive points of space in 
successive moments of time. We should have no more 
identity than there is in a continuously reproduced musical 
note. But there is nothing in this to lead to the concep- 
tion of one and the same real thing passing from point to 
point in space, and remaining identical with itself through- 
out the process. To transform this successive appearance 
of optical phenomena into the motion of an identical thing, 
the mind must bring the notion of substance into the ex- 
perience as the real ground of the phenomena, and as 
abiding through them. No matter how real the world of 
things may be, the mind can know it as real only as it 
brings its experiences under the mental categories of cause 
and substance. No amount of association will help us; 
for the utmost that this can do is to produce complexes 
of sensation. Taken together with the space principle, 
association may produce phenomena which would look like 
our intuitions of things in space ; but it could never pass 
either to the idea or to the reality of objective existence. 

To escape this conclusion, there are two devices : (1.) a 
polemic against the idea of substance, and (2.) an identifica- 
tion of substance with a group of sensations. The polemic 
is metaphysical, and claims to reduce external existence to 
a group of qualities, and internal existence to a series of 



160 PSYCHOLOGY. 

mental states. The second device consists in deducing the 
idea of substance by calling it something else. 

The metaphysical discussion is largely irrelevant to the 
psychological question as to the origin and nature of the 
idea. It is, moreover, almost entirely a series of deduc- 
tions from psychological sensationalism, which is assumed 
to be true. This was especially the case with Hume. He 
pointed out that neither the internal nor the external 
sense can give us substance, and then undertook to adjust 
our views to the doctrine. The aim is to show that our 
total experience and knowledge can be adequately ex- 
pressed in terms of sensations and feelings, real or ex- 
pected. That is, the theory is first consulted to see what 
we may mean, and then we are told that is what we do 
and must mean. We examine the doctrine with reference 
(1.) to the mental life and (2.) to the external world. 

The mind on this theory is a series of sensations and 
feelings, and we are told that, when we examine ourselves, 
we find we mean nothing more. Let us see. By hypothe- 
sis, these sensations are not sensations of anything, and 
they belong to nobody. They are simple, unrelated sensa- 
tions, as a, b, c, d, e,f, etc. Of course, a knows nothing of 
b, c, etc., for then it would be more than a sensation ; it 
would be a knowing subject having b, <?, etc. for its objects. 
But all the rest are in the same state, and a consciousness 
of objects could never arise. If we suppose association to 
unite the sensations into groups, as a b c, b c d, etc., we sim- 
ply have a coexistence of sensations, not a knowledge of that 
coexistence. But consciousness, memory, and expectation 
are possible. Hence, some member of the series, as m, 
though by hypothesis only a unit of sensation or feeling, 
must still have a knowledge of other members in their 
various relations. It must also, though now existing for 
the first time and existing only for an instant, have a 
knowledge of past sensations as having previously existed 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 161 

as states of its experience ; and it must further be able to 
look into the future, and foresee other sensations which are 
to become elements of its experience after it has ceased, 
by hypothesis, to exist. But a sensation, or feeling, which 
has other sensations and feelings together with memory 
and expectation, and which, moreover, distinguishes those 
other sensations and feelings as its own states and activi- 
ties, is precisely what others call a mental subject, a real 
agent and patient in our internal experience. Mr. Mill 
calls the view a " paradox " ; it is more than this, it is 
plain nonsense. Not the first step can be taken in under- 
standing the mental life without the conception of a real 
and abiding self. 

The corresponding doctrine of the external world has 
been expounded by Mr. Mill as well as by any one. His 
conclusion is, that things are really only " permanent pos- 
sibilities of sensation," and that this is all we mean in 
ascribing reality to them. He shows how, in the course 
of experience, actual sensations must come to be regarded 
as fleeting, in comparison with their possibility. Hence 
gradually the possibilities come to be more prominent and 
permanent in our thought than actual sensations. From 
that time on, they are regarded as things, which is only 
another name for permanent possibilities of sensation. The 
following quotation sums up the conclusion : — 

;i The sensations conceived do not, to our habitual 
thoughts, present themselves as sensations actually expe- 
rienced, inasmuch as not only any one in any number of 
them may be supposed absent, but none of them need be 
present, We find that the modifications which are taking 
place more or less regularly in our possibilities of sensa- 
tion are mostly quite independent of our consciousness, 
and of our presence or absence. Whether we are asleep 
or awake, the fire goes out, and puts an end to one particu- 
lar possibility of warmth and light. Whether we are pres- 

11 



162 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ent or absent, the corn ripens, and brings a new possibility 
of food. Hence we speedily think to learn of Nature as 
manifested in the modifications of some of these by others. 
The sensations, though the original foundation of the whole, 
come to be looked upon as a sort of accident depending on 
us, and the possibilities are much more real than the actual 
sensations, nay, as the very realities of which these are 
only the representations, appearances, or effects. When 
this state of mind has been arrived at, then, and from that 
time forward, we are never conscious of a present sensa- 
tion without instantaneously referring it to some one of 
the groups of possibilities into which a sensation of that 
particular description enters ; and if we do not yet know 
to what group to refer it, we at least feel an irresistible 
conviction that it must belong to some groups or others ; 
i. e. that its presence proves the existence, here and now, 
of a great number and variety of possibilities of sensation, 
without which it would not have been. The whole set 
of sensations, as possible, form a permanent background 
to any one or more of them that are, at a given moment, 
actual ; and the possibilities are conceived as standing to 
the actual sensations in the relation of a cause to its effects, 
or of canvas to the figures painted on it, or of a root to the 
trunk, leaves, and flowers, or of a substratum to that which 
is spread over it, or, in transcendental language, of matter 
to form." 1 

This account is not perfectly clear. The system of pos- 
sible sensations seems to have an objective existence. It 
is spoken of as independent of our presence and conscious- 
ness, and elsewhere it is declared to exist for other minds 
as well as our own. The dying fire and the ripening corn 
are given as illustrations. Moreover, there is an " active 
force " among them, which is " manifested in the modifica- 
tion of some of these by others." Further, these " possi- 

1 Examination of Sir Wra. Hamilton's Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 240, 241. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 163 

bilities are conceived as standing to the actual sensations 
in the relation of a cause to its effect." But things which 
exist apart from our perception, have active forces, modify 
one another, and produce sensational effects in us, are bet- 
ter described as real things than as possibilities of sensa- 
tion. If these words are to be taken in their ordinary 
sense, Mr. Mill has given us, not a new conception, but 
only a new terminology. The permanent possibilities of 
sensation mean those real things which condition sensa- 
tion. Our ideas remain what they were, but language has 
been outraged. 

But Mr. Mill can hardly have meditated so inglorious an 
outcome ; and we must reckon the above terms as speci- 
mens of his frequent use of language to express doctrines 
which his words seem to contradict. Let us try, then, to 
understand the phrase "permanent possibilities of sensa- 
tion." By a possible sensation, we can only mean a con- 
ception of a sensation which would be realized in an actual 
sensation if certain conditions were fulfilled. But such a 
sensation represents nothing objective or permanent. My 
real sensations exist only for myself; my possible sensa- 
tions can certainly have no more objectivity. In fact, a 
possible sensation is strictly nothing and nowhere until 
it becomes real, and then it has existence only for the 
mind that has it. Nevertheless, Mr. Mill speaks of those 
possibilities as objective and permanent. Of course, if 
there were real things external to the mind, and capable 
of acting upon it, many sensations might be possible ; but 
when the real things are denied, the objective and perma- 
nent possibility is nothing. A possibility is always a con- 
sequence or implication of something real, and is a pure 
figment of abstraction otherwise. When next Mr. Mill 
speaks of the possible sensations as the cause of actual 
sensations, we are in the lowest depths of unintelligibility. 
Thus, I see an apple, and have a sensation of color. The 



164 PSYCHOLOGY. 

cause of this actual sensation is the possibility of touching, 
tasting, and smelling the apple ! By hypothesis, the apple 
is not a substantial thing, but a complex possibility of sen- 
sation ; and I have a sensation of color because I might 
have sensations of touch, taste, and smell. But if this is 
not the meaning, then the terms have some occult sense 
which has not been revealed except to faith. In short, if 
there be a real something external to ourselves which 
causes sensations, that something is more than a possi- 
bility ; it is a productive agent. If there is no such thing, 
then our sensations are only our own states, and, however 
complicated they may become through association, they 
can never acquire more than a fictitious objectivity and 
independence. 

The metaphysical denial of the reality of substance leads 
to nonsense in the mental world, and to nihilism and sol- 
ipsism in the outer world. This only can be allowed, that 
the objects of sense perception may be only phenomena to 
which the mind has given substantial form; but in that 
case we should still have to affirm objective reality behind 
the phenomena as their ground, and we should also have to 
affirm substance as a mental principle to explain the sub- 
stantial form which the mind gives its phenomena. 

The psychological origin of the idea needs little separate 
discussion. The senses do not give it. Not the eye, for 
then it would be a color ; not the ear, for then it would be 
a sound ; not the nose, for then it would be an odor ; not 
touch, for then it would be a feeling of pressure or resist- 
ance. Nor can any combination of these sensations repre- 
sent it. I have this or that sensation, or I expect this or 
that sensation, can never be made to mean that this or that 
real thing exists. We cannot identify this idea of reality 
with any groupings or possibilities of sensation. The lat- 
ter phrase defies all construction until we bring the idea 
of reality into it. The idea of substance which sensation- 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 165 

alism explains is not the one we have ; and the idea we 
have is not explained. There is a certain excess in the 
actual idea over any possible work of association ; and the 
excess contains the gist of the idea. The ground of this 
excess must be sought in the laws of the mind itself. 
Hume refers this excess of our rational ideas over sensa- 
tional compounds to a mental " propensity to feign." That 
is, they are of subjective origin after all ; and since the 
" propensity to feign " is universal, it may, with more pro- 
priety, be called a law of thought. The " propensity to 
feign" means only that the mind, on its own warrant, 
transcends simple sense experience by bringing certain ra- 
tional elements into the sensations for their rationalization 
and interpretation. We regard substance, therefore, as pri- 
marily a mental principle, and secondarily as an ontological 
reality ; but the recognition of substance as reality is possi- 
ble only because of its control as a mental principle. 

The principle of causation whereby the mind brings its 
objects into the relation of cause and effect next demands 
consideration. This, too, is no datum of experience, but a 
mental contribution by the reason in order to comprehend 
experience. Since the time of Hume, sensationalism has 
sought (1.) to deny the objective validity of the idea, (2.) to 
deduce the idea, and (3.) to reduce it to something else. 
By causation is meant any production or determination of 
one thing by another, or the production or modification of 
any state of a thing by any other state of the same thing. 

The denial of the objective validity of the idea rests upon 
the assumed truth of the sensational theory of knowledge. 
The senses can never give us causal connection, even when 
they are supplemented by the temporal and spatial activity 
of the mind. Even then we have only a coexistence and 
sequence of phenomena. The sequence may be irregular, 
and it may be constant ; but it is still sequence, and not 
efficiency. And since the senses cannot give us causal 



166 PSYCHOLOGY. 

connection, there is no such thing. In that case no mental 
state is affected by any antecedent mental state, for there 
is no such thing as affection. If, then, we now have the 
thought of a variety of past experiences, that is not due 
to our having had a past experience; for that would be 
to suppose the antecedents to condition the consequents. 
In short, it would not be due to anything. The present 
thought would be what it is, causeless and groundless. 
Again, our mental states would not be the products of 
any system of external things, for that would be to assume 
causation again. Each mental state, whether referring to 
a past experience or to a world of objects, would be only 
a mental state, causeless and groundless. It would contain 
no warrant for transcending itself ; and if we continued to 
allow a mental subject, solipsism would be the result. Un- 
less we are prepared to dive into this depth of absurdity, 
the objective validity of causation must be allowed. It is, 
indeed, possible that our apparent objects are only phenom- 
ena, and have no dynamic relations among themselves ; 
but even then we should have to affirm an efficient ground 
behind them, which produces them and determines their 
laws and relations. 

The metaphysical question is irrelevant to the psycho- 
logical question. For if the idea were denied to have any 
metaphysical validity, its psychological existence and logi- 
cal function would remain the same. As a matter of fact, 
we do establish relations of cause and effect among our 
objects, and this fact must be accounted for. Temporal 
succession and spatial coexistence reveal no such relations ; 
whence, then, does the idea come ? The deduction of the 
idea from experience consists in taking for granted the world 
of things in causal relations. This conception being kept 
well in mind, sensations are supposed to be generated, and 
invariable relations of sequence are supposed to be estab- 
lished. When this process has gone on for some time and 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 167 

the product has become very complex, we may suppose 
that " internal relations " among sensations have been 
" adjusted " to " external relations " among things. But 
the " external relations " were relations of causality among 
real things. We remember this, and the deduction is com- 
plete. So naturally and spontaneously does the mind affirm 
the causal relation, that it never occurs to the speculator 
and his disciples that the mind can pass to that world of 
real things in causal relations only by virtue of the causal 
principle. The raw material of perception is sensations ; 
and these have to be built into a world of things before 
such a world can be known. However real that world 
may be, it can be reached only through a principle in the 
mind itself, whereby it brings its objects into the relation 
of cause and effect. When this is borne in mind, it will 
not seem to be so brilliant an effort of analysis to assume 
in the data the idea to be explained. 

We must, then, reduce the idea to something else, or 
regard it as a mental datum of reason itself. This reduc- 
tion was attempted by Hume in the assurance that by cau- 
sation we mean only invariable antecedence and sequence. 
This was met by Reid with the objection that there are 
cases of invariable antecedence and sequence, as day and 
night, which are not regarded as in causal relations. Mill 
proposes to amend the definition by adding "unconditional." 
" Invariable sequence, therefore, is not synonymous with 
causation, unless the sequence, besides being invariable, is 
unconditional. . . . We may define, therefore, the cause of 
a phenomenon to be the antecedent, or the concurrence of 
antecedents, on which it is invariably and unconditionally 
consequent." x " Unconditionally " is denned as " subject to 
no other than negative conditions " ; and " negative condi- 
tions . . . may all be summed up under one head, namely, 
the absence of preventing or counteracting causes." 2 

1 System of Logic, 8th edition, p. 245. 2 Ibid., p. 241. 



168 PSYCHOLOGY. 

In the first quotation Mr. Mill seems to be denning cau- 
sation as meaning invariable unconditional sequence. In 
the second, his language may be interpreted as defining 
causation, or as indicating which of various antecedents is 
the cause. This ambiguity is increased by the fact that 
Mr. Mill disclaims all reference to efficient causation, his 
aim being to define causation as used in inductive science. 
At the same time, he often lapses into the assumption that 
this definition includes all there is in causation, and that 
any excess in the philosophic conception is a speculative 
phantom. In either case, it is rather discouraging to find 
the notion defined appearing in the definition. Thus cau- 
sation is not invariable sequence, but " invariable uncon- 
ditional sequence"; but an unconditional sequence is one 
which always occurs when not hindered by " preventing or 
counteracting causes." Mr. Mill's laborious attempt to 
find a formula to take the place of the principle of causa- 
tion results in producing one which demands the idea of 
causation for its comprehension. One of the most extra- 
ordinary features of this attempt to reduce causation to 
invariable sequence is the failure to notice that in that 
case we should affirm causation as the rare exception, and 
not as the universal rule. Nature does not present itself 
as a series of invariable sequences, but as a highly variable 
order of succession. The belief in uniformity is a late 
product; while the belief in causation is as old as the 
mind. The belief in uniformity is even now a scientific 
rather than a popular belief ; and the uniformity in most 
cases is believed in rather than perceived. One would 
think, to read the reductions of causation to uniformity, that 
nature is a series of straight lines, instead of a tangled web 
whose pattern is mostly a matter of guess-work. 

The aim of inductive science is to find the uniformities 
of nature ; and our definition of causation is irrelevant to 
this aim. Further, we may suppose a formula invented 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 169 

which should cover every case of causation and exclude 
all others, yet without covering causation itself. Let us 
admit that the relation of causation involves the invariable 
and unconditional sequence of the effect, we still have only 
a mark and consequence of the relation, and not the relation 
itself. To be sure, we ought not to mean any more than 
sequence, but we do mean more. We do not mean that 
one state of things was, and another state is ; we mean 
that one state is because another state was. This idea of 
efficiency, of determination, is omitted from the temporal 
formula ; and yet this is the gist of the matter. As in the 
case of substance, the idea we have is not explained, but 
rather the idea which we ought to have but have not. We 
must take our choice. If causation be real efficiency, the 
idea cannot be deduced from sense experience. If it mean 
only sequence, then no thing or state of things affects any- 
thing else, or produces any new state of things. In that 
case our sensations point to nothing beyond themselves. 
Every mental state simply is as it is and while it is. Any 
reference of it to objective things or persons as its cause 
is groundless. Likewise any reference to past experience 
as explaining its peculiarities is equally groundless. It is 
as it is, and where and when it is, for no reason or cause 
at all. It simply is. 

This view would cancel sensationalism entirely. A curi- 
ous inconsequence has always appeared in sensationalist 
philosophy at this point. The aim has been to represent 
all rational ideas as products of sensation and the laws of 
association. But when this is applied to causation, the 
philosophy cancels itself. For all the manifold " explana- 
tions " which sensationalism has vouchsafed to a long- 
suffering world consist in showing how antecedent mental 
states must determine new mental states according to the 
laws of association ; and as for sensations most sensational- 
ists have had no hesitation in referring them to external 



170 PSYCHOLOGY. 

causes without scruple, or even suspicion of the inconsist- 
ency. Concerning any conception of our mature life, we 
are warned against taking it as an original mental fact. 
We are told how it came about as a deposit of experience 
either in us or in our ancestors. If a suggestion of free- 
dom is made, it is frowned upon forthwith as one of the 
most unscientific ideas possible, if not a trace of an anti- 
quated superstition. But if sensationalism be admitted, 
all this is hopelessly inconsistent. No idea is, or is as it 
is, because any other idea was; rather some ideas were, 
and some other ideas are. To suppose an influence, a 
modification, is contrary to the hypothesis. It is equally 
so to assume a world beyond our sensations, a process of 
evolution, etc. To suppose a determination in volition is 
likewise to fly in the face of the theory. If anything is or 
occurs, we must not ask why ; for there is no why. Thus 
all the explanations of sensationalism disappear, and by 
sheer excess the doctrine cancels itself. 

We have the idea of causation. It cannot be abstracted 
from experience, for the reason that it cannot be found in 
experience until the mind puts it there. We cannot get 
along without it. The sensationalist can neither explain 
it nor explain it away. We must, then, regard the law of 
causation as primarily a mental principle upon which our 
rational life depends. Its ontological significance may be 
left to metaphysics. 

The conditions of the development of the ideas of cause 
and substance admit of no sharp determination. The most 
general statement would be, that the notion of cause is devel- 
oped only through the perception of change, and the notion 
of substance only through some perception of permanence. 

In the external world the notion of substance is expressed 
in the notion of thing ; and to the formation of this notion 
there are necessary (1.) a spatial separation and (2.) a 
temporal continuity. Space is pre-eminently the principle 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOK. 171 

by which we differentiate things ; and when this is impos- 
sible, we view the thing as one. Temporal continuity is 
also the principle by which we identify things. We regard 
a thing as the same, no matter what changes of form and 
quality it may undergo, if there be a temporal continuity of 
phenomena connected with it. On the other hand, a com- 
plete likeness of properties would not be taken as pointing 
to the same thing, if we assumed a solution of continuity in 
the thing's changes. Such a fact would be interpreted as the 
disappearance of one thing and the appearance of another. 
This spatial separation and temporal continuity, which were 
originally necessary to the formation of the notion of a 
thing, we retain as marks of a thing even when it eludes 
our perception. The atomic theory and the doctrine of the 
indestructibility of matter are examples. 

Change is necessary to the development of the idea of 
causation. This is the truth in the claim that sequence 
leads to the notion. It does lead to it, but it does not 
give it. Any variation of one thing with another leads to 
the notion of causal connection. 

It is often claimed that this idea arises only from the 
consciousness of our own activity, so that, if we were not 
volitional and active, the conception of causation would 
never arise. This implies (1.) that we have a direct con- 
sciousness of causation in our own activity, and (2.) that 
this is the source of all ideas of causation. 

The first point is mistaken, so far as our external action 
is concerned. In the control of our body we are only occa- 
sions for the agency of some foreign power ; our activity 
extends only to the production of the volition. TTe are 
not, then, conscious of ourselves as causes in the outer 
world. It may also be questioned how far our inner cau- 
sality is a matter of direct consciousness. But admitting 
such consciousness, the question would next arise whether 
this is a case of causation or the meaning of causation. 



172 PSYCHOLOGY. 

If we call it a case, then the causal idea is presupposed. 
If we identify it with causation, then we must say that 
causation means willing guided by purpose. But in fact 
causation does not mean this primarily for the great ma- 
jority even of thinkers. Such an identification, if reached 
at all, must emerge as the result of a long course of meta- 
physical reasoning, and not as an analysis of the simple 
notion of causation. And even this would apply only to 
causation in things. But mental states modify one another, 
and we apply the notion of causation to them ; yet in most 
cases they are not products of any assignable volition, and 
still less can they be supposed to have volition. When the 
idea a is in the mind, the idea b is produced. Here is 
causation, but whichever way we read it we cannot get the 
idea of volition into it. We do not will the appearance 
of 5, nor does a will it. Nor is there any way of getting 
will into the problem except by saying that the First 
Cause wills b on occasion of a. 

The truth in this general claim is this : — 

1. We cannot represent causation to ourselves except 
under a psychological form. Hence the mind has often 
sought to interpret it anthropomorphically by attributing a 
kind of will to the cause and a kind of feeling to the thing 
acted upon. When this is left out there remains only the 
representation of antecedence and sequence, with the con- 
viction, however, that we mean more, even the unrepresent- 
able notion of efficiency. 

2. Our own activities are especially effective in awaking 
the notion of cause. In particular, the resistance we ex- 
perience in our dealing with the external world is pecu- 
liarly adapted to lead to a differentiation of the self and 
the not-self. We may well believe that, if we were simply 
intellectual lookers-on upon the movements of phenomena, 
we should be much longer in reaching the idea of causation 
than we are when we are ourselves in volitional interaction 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 173 

with the outer world. But if our rational nature remained 
unchanged, the demand for a cause would arise even apart 
from all voluntary activity. For while the will may reveal 
a case of causation, it is the reason which demands causa- 
tion and declares it universal. 

The formulated principle of causation is, of course, sec- 
ond, and not first. As in the case of space, the mind does 
not begin with an idea of one all-embracing space, but rather 
begins by setting particular objects into space relations, so 
here also the mind does not begin with a general formula, 
but by affirming causal relations among its objects. It is 
only later, through a reflection upon its procedure in so 
doing, that the mind reaches the generalized principle that 
every event or change must have a cause. 

The notions of cause and substance stand in the most 
intimate relations to each other, and mutually affect each 
other's development. Likewise they receive various modi- 
fications in their several applications. The element of cau- 
sality taken up into the notion of a thing modifies greatly 
the notion of substance by turning its qualities into activi- 
ties. In this way arise such notions as force, energy, 
power, capacity, etc. These are causal terms considered as 
denoting qualities of a substance. Similarly, in psychology 
we have faculties, capacities, impulses, etc. The develop- 
ment and analysis of these ideas must be handed over to 
logic and metaphysics. 

The general aim of this chapter has been to show that 
there are two orders of movement in the mind. The first 
comprises the sensations and their changes, according to 
the laws of association. The second comprises the reac- 
tion upon the sensations, and the establishment of relations 
among them for their rationalization and interpretation. 
The former is a phase of the sensibility; the latter is an 
activity of thought or reason. The former furnishes the 
raw material; the latter gives it form and interpretation. 



174 PSYCHOLOGY. 

There is no possibility of either of these passing into the 
other. The rational activity cannot dispense with the raw 
material of sensibility ; and the attempts to elevate the 
sensibility to the plane of reason by the force of association 
belong to the sorriest efforts of speculation. 

Within the general aim mentioned, the specific aim has 
been to discuss the leading rational relations which consti- 
tute the framework of knowledge, and ultimately of intelli- 
gence itself. The mind attains to knowledge only through 
the establishment of these relations. If we drop them out 
of our mental scheme, the whole system of knowledge falls 
together in a chaotic mass, and thought perishes. But it 
has not been our aim to write the psychological history of 
the categories, but only to determine their source and seat. 
We do not regard them as existing primarily as ideas, but 
as being determinative principles of mental procedure, or 
as constitutive principles of intelligence. Supposing this 
established, one may go on to study the order and con- 
ditions of their manifestation. The question whether they 
mediate a valid knowledge also remains open. All that 
appears at present is, that there are certain directive and 
constitutive principles in the developed mental life, which 
can only be viewed as expressing the fundamental build 
of the mind itself. 

We have discussed only the leading categories. Whether 
a completed system of categories is possible is much dis- 
cussed ; our own conviction is that it is not possible. The 
categories, also, do not admit of deduction from a single 
root. This ideal has been fondly cherished, and eagerly 
followed ; but we have to take them as given, without 
any hope of deducing one from another. It can never be 
shown that a being who has experiences in time must also 
project them under the form of space, or that the category 
of causation implies space relations. 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 175 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 

As the sensational philosophy is supposed to have re- 
ceived great aid and comfort from the doctrine of evolu- 
tion, it seems desirable to consider briefly its bearings 
upon psychology. 

No individual experience is able to transform sensations 
into the ideas and categories of the reason. It is sug- 
gested, however, that a race-experience might accomplish 
this wonder in such a way that what is now apriori for the 
individual may be aposteriori for the race. By heredity 
the individual inherits the experience of his ancestors, and 
thus mental forms and faculties are produced as the inte- 
gral of this race-experience. This suggestion has been 
eagerly adopted, and has been supposed greatly to extend 
the resources of the sensational school. In fact, it leaves 
the argument weaker than it was before ; as it in no wise 
strengthens the positive argument, and has in addition 
many special difficulties of its own. In particular, it re- 
jects the sensationalist's analysis of the individual con- 
sciousness, and declares that this cannot be understood 
as the outcome of the individual experience. If, then, it 
cannot make its theory of a race-experience work, it has 
surrendered in advance. The difficulties are commonly 
kept out of sight by words ; all the more necessary is it 
to seek to comprehend the process. 

Inasmuch as this theory is often joined with materialism, 
we first point out that materialism cannot be joined with any 
sensational philosophy without mutual destruction. The 
grounds for this claim are these : — 

1. Materialism is opposed to sensationalism and empiri- 
cism, because it deduces all mental states from physical 



176 PSYCHOLOGY. 

structure. They represent no deposit of experience at all ; 
but are solely the subjective expression of a special phase 
of molecular aggregation and movement. This is so much 
the case, that, if the physical double of any person were pro- 
duced at first hand from inorganic raw material, it would 
have all the memories, expectations, knowledge, and mental 
insight of the person himself. Of course, the organism 
might be slowly developed, but the mental states, as such, 
would be at every point only the necessary subjective ex- 
pression of what the body is at that moment, and would 
have no more connection among themselves than the cloud- 
shadows which chase one another over the fields on a sum- 
mer's day. For a given kind and shade of feeling, there 
would be a special molecular grouping. For a specific 
thought or judgment, there would be another and peculiar 
grouping. For moral ideas and for religious conceptions, 
likewise, there would be specific and definite groupings. On 
this theory, what is needed for an all-embracing memory, 
for the profoundest insight into present and future, and 
even for the loftiest moral and religious aspirations, is not 
mental experience, but the proper organism. The mental 
results, also, are never anything contingent and adventi- 
tious, but rather something inherent and essential. The 
intuition, the morality, the religion, are all as inherent in 
the nature of matter as gravitation and affinity, and need 
only the fulfilment of certain conditions for their manifesta- 
tions. There may be an order of succession, but there can 
be no psychological transformation of lower into higher 
forms. The theory provides only for succession, not for 
transformation. To be sure, the materialist has generally 
been a sensationalist, and having, as he thinks, explained 
sensations, he then leaves them to combine on their own 
account. But in so doing he forgets that in his theory 
feelings have no power to come, or go, or combine, of 
themselves, and that every mental state is what it is, a 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 177 

subjective phase of a special form of molecular grouping 
and movement, and not in any sense a modification of 
other mental states. Materialism ought to teach a lofty 
form of apriorism. The existing alliance between materi- 
alism and sensationalism is one of the many inconsisten- 
cies of evolutionary thinking. 

2. Conversely, sensationalism is incompatible with mate- 
rialism ; for, as we have already seen, sensationalism, when 
reasoned out, must deny matter as an objective reality 
altogether. Matter becomes only a group of sensations 
projected as an object, and so far from explaining the 
existence of mind, it is dependent upon mind for its own 
existence. 

Psychological transformationism is impossible where there 
is not a real mental subject. Now all that heredity could 
do in this direction would be still more probable if we sup- 
pose one and the same person to live through the life of the 
race. Such a fact would be the most favorable for the pro- 
posed transformation ; but the considerations already de- 
duced in considering the deductions of the ideas of space, 
cause, and substance are fatal to its success. The diffi- 
culties there dwelt upon had nothing to do with time ; 
and they would be no less if the time were indefinitely 
extended. The premises were incommensurable with the 
conclusion ; and there is nothing in simple duration to 
fill up the gulf between them. It was necessary at last to 
falsify the ideas, and call something else by their name ; 
and this was the deduction. And so it would be if we 
supposed the individual experience to be of indefinite 
duration. The ambiguity of the facts of successive de- 
velopment, and the fanciful character of the " chem- 
istry of ideas," have already been pointed out. Hence 
in this most favorable case we arc no better off as sensa- 
tionalists with the doctrine of evolution than without it. 
The strange terms and long times impress the imagina- 

12 



178 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion and minds of a passive type, but have no rational 
significance. 

The actual circumstances are far more unfavorable to 
success, as they involve a series of different minds, and it 
becomes a difficult problem to connect a race-experience 
with an individual experience. Of course the solution is 
found in heredity, but this is a word more easily pro- 
nounced than understood. Let a,b, c, d, etc. represent the 
successive members of a genealogical series ; these mem- 
bers are ontologically as distinct as different atoms. But 
if the notion of a race-experience is to help us, there must 
be some way whereby the experience of a may become that 
of b, etc. At the same time, it must not become 6's own 
experience, nor yet be known as a's experience ; for then, 
in one form or another, the memories of the later members 
of the series would go back to the beginning. Experience, 
then, must be transmitted as tendencies or capacities of 
some sort, and not as conscious knowledge or conceptions 
of any kind. If we ask how this is done, we are referred 
to heredity ; but heredity is the problem, not its solution. 

The current device for solving this problem supposes the 
transmission to take place through physical modifications, 
especially of the brain, which are transmitted by heredity. 
In this way posterity inherit improved brains, and through 
them improved thought. This puts the mystery of heredity 
in the physical realm. The device limps in the following 
respects. 

1. If it were so, the fact would be ambiguous. On any 
theory, an improved brain must lead to improved mental 
action, other things being equal. Such a brain would be 
more pliant to mental demands, and would furnish the mind 
a finer and subtler stimulus to the unfolding of its own 
proper powers ; but such a fact would be irrelevant to the 
present question. It remains undecided, then, whether the 
effect of heredity is to transmit a mental experience or 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 179 

merely to produce a more facile organ. The former view 
is the only relevant one. 

2. Against this view, we have seen that all known facts 
oppose the theory that ideas are represented by any structu- 
ral combinations in the brain. But if they were, and if 
those combinations were reproduced in the brains of de- 
scendants, there would be no transmission of ideas, but 
only a physical stimulus to the production of these ideas 
by the mind. The idea would still come from the mind ; 
and all we should inherit would be an incitement to its 
production. Its ground and nature would still be due to 
the mind in question, and not to ancestral experience. In 
any other sense than this, there can be no transmission of 
mental experience ; but this fails entirely to meet the case. 
The fact would be, that the new mental subject, M, would 
be in interaction with an organism genealogically connected 
with antecedent organisms. But this organism neither 
thinks nor has thoughts in it; but merely stimulates M 
to unfold its own proper nature. That M still contains the 
mystery. 

The truth is, that the holders of this view have generally 
been haunted by the fancy that the actual mental experience 
may be handed bodily along. Under the influence of this 
fancy they have produced such highly elegant conceptions 
as " mind-stuff," and " psychoplasm," and have spoken 
freely of present thoughts and emotions as integrals or 
echoes of all ancestral experiences. But such figures of 
speech defy all interpretation. The experience of the in- 
dividual as a particular mental event cannot be recovered 
by the person himself; still less can an ancestor's experi- 
ence be recovered. If, then, we should examine an evolved 
nervous system, we should certainly find no sensations or 
experiences, or echoes, or integrals of mental states of any 
kind, in it. We should find simply a physical organism 
which has reached its present state as the result of a long 



180 PSYCHOLOGY. 

process of development. But it would have no more expe- 
rience in it than a similar organism made direct from the 
inorganic ; and in order that the structure of this evolved 
organism should ever acquire any mental significance, it 
must come into interaction with a distinct mental subject, 
which shall not be furnished by it with ready-made ideas 
and experiences, but which shall be stimulated by it to 
unfold its own essential nature. 

Supposing all these difficulties surmounted, we are as 
badly off as ever in seeing how heredity can help us in 
the advance to new ideas. It seems clear, first of all, that 
before our ancestors could transmit an idea they must have 
had it, and that we cannot well inherit what they did not 
have. Mental heredity with all its mystery is simply a 
means of transmitting what is possessed, and not a method 
of originating new ideas. If, then, our ancestors had ex- 
perience only of sensations, they could by no possibility 
have transmitted other than sensational experience. Be- 
fore they could do more, they must have risen above the 
sensational plane ; and this carries us back to the analysis 
of the individual consciousness. Indeed, heredity, instead 
of giving us more than our ancestors had, would rather give 
us less ; as the transmission takes place in the form of ten- 
dencies and instincts, rather than in conscious and rational 
perception. For example, our moral instincts are supposed 
to be due to ancestral perceptions of utility ; hence, where 
our ancestors had a rational perception of utility we have 
an instinct from which the rational element has disap- 
peared. The intelligence has "lapsed" by transmission. 

In these mechanical notions of transmission there is the 
crude fancy before mentioned, that ideas are something 
which can be passed along bodily and ready made. But 
in fact all ideas, and especially our ideas of rational rela- 
tions, are mental functions which exist only in and through 
the mental activity which produces them. Hence, to trans- 



THE THOUGHT-FACTOR. 181 

mit ideas or experience means only to stimulate the mind 
to perform the appropriate function; and that which fits 
the mind to perform that function must always be sought, 
not in experience, but in the mysterious nature of the mind 
itself. 

It is needless to pursue the view further. The imagina- 
tions of its upholders have been so impressed with the 
! grandeur of the theory, that they have not analyzed it to 
see whether it would do what it promised. In addition to 
the influence of the vast periods of time dealt with, and the 
strange terminology employed, the use of the general term 
mind has been very effective. This has been "developed" 
all the way up from the feeble stirrings of the polyp's ten- 
tacles to the mental insight of the philosopher. Of course 
there is no mind, but a series of individual minds ; but to 
have remembered this would have seriously embarrassed 
the " development." We conclude that evolution has no 
such importance for psychology as its friends imagine. In 
the history of the world, there is a successive appearance 
of mental subjects of ascending grade ; in the history of the 
individual, there is a successive appearance of graded men- 
tal functions. Both facts are interesting, but without theo- 
retical significance. The attempt to identify these functions 
as essentially the same is a failure. The gathering up of 
these mental subjects under the one term mind is simply 
an echo of the scholastic realism. Finally, the dispute does 
not concern the facts of development, but their interpreta- 
tion. The fact is a successive and conditional development 
of mental functions. The explanation is double. Sensa- 
tionalism seeks to identify these functions as phases of the 
same sensitive process. Rationalism regards them as es- 
sentially different, so that, while the lower may condition 
the unfolding of the higher, they cannot of themselves pass 
into the higher, neither in an individual experience nor in 
a race-experience. 



182 PSYCHOLOGY. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PEELINGS. 

The doctrine of the feelings is the most confused part 
of psychology, and has been least developed. From a phil- 
osophical standpoint, the psychology of cognition is more 
interesting ; and from an ethical standpoint, the psychology 
of volition is more important. Further, the cognitive ele- 
ments admit of much more exact determination than those 
of feeling. The former are fixed and universal ; the latter 
are fleeting and individual. The former admit of direct 
inspection and analysis in consciousness ; the latter can be 
studied only indirectly, for the reflective consciousness is 
fatal to their spontaneity. Nothing is so real as a feeling, 
nothing is so hard to define. In objective perception we 
can at least point to the object, and be fairly sure that 
others have the same thing in mind ; but here we are 
confined to language, and the terminology of feeling par- 
takes of the vagueness and indefiniteness of the feelings 
themselves. 

No definition of feeling can be given. We can only iden- 
tify and name it. In sensation we can distinguish the per- 
ception of a quality and a state of agreeable or disagreeable 
consciousness which attends it. This state of conscious- 
ness is a physical feeling. The perception of the quality is 
the cognitive side of the sensation ; the feeling is the ac- 
companying state of the sensibility. These are the two ele- 
ments which, under the names of perception and sensation, 
Hamilton declared to vary inversely each as the other. 

Again, in our perception of objects we can distinguish 
the simple cognitive grasp of the fact from any delight 



THE FEELINGS. 183 

or dislike we may feel. We see a flower. Perception 
simply gives it as it is in color, outline, etc., and does not 
go beyond this colorless presentation of the fact. But 
along with this perception there goes a sense of delight in 
it. This is something added to the cognition. It is an 
aesthetic feeling. 

Again, we conceive an act both in its motives and in its 
consequences. We read, perhaps, of some great deed of 
heroism or of self-denial. Cognition simply reports the 
fact; but along with this there go various sentiments of 
approval, admiration, etc. These, too, are not cognitions, 
but moral feelings. 

We might, then, define feeling as that state of conscious- 
ness which consists in some form of pleasure or pain, like 
or dislike, satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Of course, this 
is not a definition, but only an identification. What the 
terms mean can be known only in experience. If we give 
pleasure and pain the widest meaning, so as to include all 
desirable and undesirable states of consciousness, we may 
say that feeling, in opposition to knowing, consists in some 
form of pleasurable, or painful, consciousness. This exten- 
sion of terms, however, is more likely to confuse than 
otherwise. The feelings of aesthetic and moral satisfaction 
or dissatisfaction, the simple intellectual feeling of sur- 
prise or curiosity, the many feelings which have so little 
affinity with pleasure or pain as to seem indifferent to 
both, — none of these are well described as pleasurable or 
painful. Let us say, then, as a final definition, that feel- 
ing is feeling, just as knowing is knowing ; and it does 
generally consist in some form of desirable or undesira- 
ble consciousness, which either springs directly from our 
physical experience, or which attends our mental activities, 
or which arises from the contemplation of our objects and 
ideas. 

Feeling cannot be deduced. Sensation, considered as 



184 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the simple cognition of a quality, involves no feeling. Per- 
ception, considered as a cognition of objects and their rela- 
tions, also involves no feeling. Reflection, too, considered 
as a form of internal cognition, likewise implies no feeling. 
Action, finally, considered as the execution of a purpose, 
does not imply feeling. Actually, all of these processes 
are accompanied by feeling, not, however, as an analytic im- 
plication, but rather as an incommensurable addition. A 
purely cognitive intelligence might have perfect knowledge 
of things and their relations to itself ; it might know that 
certain things, or courses of action, would destroy its own 
existence ; it might even know that its own existence was 
about to be destroyed; but this knowledge alone would 
imply no feeling. Such an intellect would be like a mirror; 
it would accurately reflect all that passed before it ; but it 
would be as indifferent as the mirror. Even the blow that 
should shatter it would be reflected with the same passion- 
less indifference as all things else. Nor would it be other- 
wise if we supposed this intelligence to be connected with 
a physical organism. It would know the physical condi- 
tions of its existence, and might know that those conditions 
were being violated ; but neither the knowledge nor the fact 
would involve any feeling. Just as no state of the organism 
involves perception as an analytic implication, so no state 
of the organism, however abnormal it may be, involves feel- 
ing as an analytic implication. Indeed, in our own case, 
the most deadly interference with the health of the organ- 
ism can take place without any affection of the sensibility. 
Thus parts of the brain can be cut away without pain ; and 
many forms of disease are most fatal when painless, while 
some are even attended by feelings of unusual comfort. 
If now we find that such complete sensitive indifference to 
physical and intellectual states in general does not exist, 
we must conclude that the soul is not merely cognitive, but 
also sensitive, that it not only knows, but enjoys and suf- 



THE FEELINGS. 185 

fers, and that this feature of our life must be ascribed to a 
special reaction of the soul against the incitements of its 
physical and cognitive experience. 

Until the time of Kant there was a general tendency in 
psychology to regard feeling as a kind of knowing. Des- 
cartes defined pleasure as a " consciousness of some one 
or other of our perfections.' , Leibnitz viewed feeling as a 
confused or obscure perception. Wolff called pleasure " an 
intuitive knowledge of perfection." Locke defined the feel- 
ings by the cognitive circumstances under which they arise. 
Thus, " Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind upon the thought 
of a good lost." " Despair is the thought of the unattain- 
ableness of any good." (Essay, Book II. c. 20.) The last 
definition is a good example of his tendency to identify the 
feeling with the conception. Even Kant, who strove to 
distinguish feeling from cognition, defined pleasure as the 
feeling of furtherance, and pain as the feeling of hindrance, 
of life. From the physiological side, also, there have been 
attempts to define feeling as unconscious perception of 
harmony or discord between our state and the normal con- 
ditions of well-being. Opposed to this attempt to reduce 
feeling to cognition is the attempt to reduce cognition to 
feeling. This has been the general aim of the sensation- 
alists; but by feeling they have generally understood sensa- 
tions which involve both cognitive and sensitive elements ; 
so that the deduction turns out to be a device of defini- 
tion. The apparent success of both of these opposed 
attempts is due to the fact that in actual mental states 
both elements are present ; so that, whichever we resolve 
to make fundamental, the other will surely creep into rec- 
ognition. This subreption will easily pass for deduction. 
Kant first emphasized the separateness of feeling and cog- 
nition. This, however, does not mean that feeling and 
cognition exist in absolute separation and independence, 
but only that neither can be deduced from the other. 



186 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The attempts to deduce feeling generally confound feel- 
ing with its conditions. Thus physical feeling is said to 
result from the state of the organism. Allowing this to be 
true, we have only a condition, not the thing. As there is 
nothing in the conception of nervous action which implies 
that a sensation of light must result, so there is nothing 
in any physical conception which implies that it must be 
accompanied with pleasure or pain. There is nothing in 
the conception of congestion, or atrophy, or a burn, which 
implies that it must be felt as pain ; and if pain does result, 
it can only be as there is a subject capable of feeling, and 
in such relation to the organism that the states of the latter 
furnish the conditions for t)ie development of feeling. The 
fact that pain so generally results from an abnormal state 
of the body must not mislead us into thinking that the 
connection is one of logical implication,, or anything more 
than a simple fact. Moreover, we have seen that this con- 
nection is not constant. In general, an abnormal state is 
indicated by pain ; but sometimes there is just the opposite 
result of unusual comfort. If we should allow that pleas- 
ure actually attends all action which tends to conserve the 
individual or the race, while pain attends action of opposite 
tendency, we should still have no deduction, but only a dis- 
covery of a biological and teleological function for feeling 
which actually exists. For all that we can see, the same 
end might have been reached in other ways. 

Herbart has sought to deduce feeling from the inter- 
action of our representations. This also is a failure in 
all respects. We have seen that the notion of interaction 
among mental states is an unclear one at best, and, in most 
of its forms, absurd. But, apart from these difficulties, the 
theory has the following short-comings : — 

1. It ignores physical feeling, and would imply that nei- 
ther fire nor frost could hurt until a store of ideas had 
been developed. 



THE FEELINGS. 187 

2. There is no proof possible that the simple dynamic 
relations of mental states, whereby they should strengthen 
or repress, re-enforce or extinguish one another, must be 
experienced as pleasure or pain. Beginning with purely 
cognitive elements, there is no way of transition to sensitive 
elements. 

3. If such transition, however, is made, it can only be as 
the soul is more than a purely cognitive being. It must 
have a complex nature, such that the relations of its ideas 
furnish the incitement to a special form of sensitive reac- 
tion. Loss is not sorrow ; repression is not pain ; failure 
is not disappointment ; success is not happiness ; facility 
is not pleasure. These subjects and predicates are not 
analytically connected ; and no reflection upon the defini- 
tion of the former will reveal the latter. 

The claim that feeling is a perception of the significance 
that a given state has for our well-being, is of the same 
sort ; or rather it confounds feeling with its conditions on 
the one hand, and with perception on the other. Without 
doubt, feeling is often conditioned by the agreement or dis- 
agreement of our state with the conditions of our normal 
existence, but we cannot identify it either with the agree- 
ment or disagreement, or with a perception of the same. 
Much of our feeling toward objects also arises from some 
conception of their significance for our well-being ; but this 
conception again is only the ground of the feeling, and not 
the feeling itself. A toothache arises from an abnormal 
state of the nerve ; but for all that, it is neither that state 
nor a perception of that state ; it is purely its own wretched 
self. We conclude, then, that while feeling attends our 
physical and mental functions, and springs also from the 
contemplation of objects and relations, there is no way of 
deducing it from them. 

Feelings have two sources, the state of the organism and 
the relations of our mental states and ideas. Feelings from 



188 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the former source we call the physical feelings ; for those 
having a mental source, there is no comprehensive term. 
They are sometimes called the emotions; but in popular 
language the emotions are commonly viewed as passive 
feelings in distinction from the desires. In actual experi 
ence many forms of feeling exist which have both a physi- 
cal and a mental root. Indeed, the physical state enters as 
an important factor into many of our higher emotions. 
The most striking example is that of parental and conjugal 
affection. Here the physical and spiritual factors of our 
nature work together. The physical elements furnish the 
occasion and the stimulus for the development of spiritual 
sentiments; and these in turn idealize physical relations 
and prevent them from ever sinking to the level of their 
purely physical significance. Feelings of this class cannot 
be understood from either the physical or the mental side 
alone ; but only from the co-working of both. The ana- 
logues of these sentiments in the brute world seem to 
have only a physical root ; as they do not last beyond the 
physical conditions which occasioned them. 

The physical feelings arise from some physical state or 
function. The special feelings are connected with some 
special part, either some of the organs of special sense or 
some specific part of the organism. The organs of the 
special senses vary very greatly in their relation to feeling. 
Those which have the function of giving us a knowledge of 
the outer world are almost sensitively indifferent in their 
normal activity. The eye and ear have only the faintest 
functional feelings, except when strained, wearied, or dis- 
eased. The other special senses are more pronounced in 
this respect ; and the organic sensations are pure feelings. 
As the feeling increases, the cognitive element diminishes ; 
and where both are present, an excess of feeling absorbs 
attention and makes it hard to concentrate thought. When 
the feeling is not located, we have a general sense of com- 






THE FEELINGS. 189 

fort or discomfort, of strength or weakness, of health or 
disease, etc. 

The physical feelings may be roughly distinguished as 
constitutional and contingent. The former are such feel- 
ings as attend those physical appetites and cravings which 
arise from the nature of the organism itself. Hunger and 
thirst, the need of exercise and of rest, are examples. 
Other physical feelings do not spring from the nature and 
law of the organism, but depend upon some contingent 
state, either arising within the organism or resulting from 
external action upon it. 

The teleological character of the physical feelings has 
already been sufficiently indicated. They are almost entirely 
related to the use and well-being of the organism, or to the 
arousing and directing of our activity. Taken together, 
they constitute a highly complex series both of incite- 
ments and of repressions of activity ; and this activity is 
in the main adapted to preserve either the individual or 
the race. This rule, however, is subject to many excep- 
tions. Physical appetites, especially acquired ones, often 
incite to injurious and destructive forms of activity. Even 
hunger and thirst are seldom accurately adjusted to the 
demands of perfect health. 

In speaking of the form of the nervous process which 
underlies sensation in general, we saw that nothing is 
known about it. That which underlies physical feeling 
is equally mysterious. At first it would seem that the 
process might well be one and the same, and that the 
perception of the quality and the having of the feeling are 
double only in consciousness. In that case we should have 
a complex reaction against the single process. Neverthe- 
less, the facts of analgia show that the perception can take 
place without the feeling. In the use of anaesthetics, it is 
often found that the perceptive function remains after the 
sensibility to pain has vanished. Even the nerves of touch 



190 PSYCHOLOGY. 

in the parts affected may remain active after all pain has 
ceased. These facts show either that there is a special 
nervous function for the production of feeling, or that feel- 
ing is connected only with a special intensity of the gen- 
eral nervous function upon which perception rests. The 
distinction is further suggested by the changeability of our 
likes and dislikes with reference to the same object. Ac- 
quired tastes, like those for tobacco and olives, are striking 
examples. In such cases the external stimulus and the 
perceptive element are constant, but the sensitive factor 
varies from one extreme to its opposite. Nor can we do 
much with the notion of intensity as the ground of feeling. 
If we find the ground of pain in too great intensity of 
nervous action, we ought to find the ground of pleasure in 
the opposite direction, and ought further to find a point of 
indifference between them. Generally, it would seem that 
the ground of both lies in the form of the nervous activity 
rather than in its quantity. The entire subject is in pro- 
found obscurity ; but we need to guard ourselves against 
applying terms with psychological implications to the 
nerves, and then fancying that we have deduced the psycho- 
logical idea from our physiology, and not from the terms 
employed. Thus, when we have referred pain to nervous 
exhaustion, the term exhaustion makes it easy to transfer 
our feelings to our nerves, and then we deduce our feelings 
from the nervous states with the greatest ease. We need 
equally to guard against the fancy that the nervous process 
which conditions the feeling in any way explains it. The 
feelings are not in the nerves, and are physical only in the 
sense of having a physical incitement. 

The feelings which have a purely mental source are 
much more numerous and important These do not arise 
from the organic functions, but from some conception or 
mental state. Thus, the aversion which attends the vision 
of a serpent, or of blood, or of any disgusting object, does 



THE FEELINGS. 191 

not arise from any pernicious effect upon the nerves, but 
from the significance which we attribute to the objects. 
The conception is necessary to the feeling. Again, the 
feelings of mirth, contempt, etc., arise from the relations of 
ideas, and would disappear with the ideas. The grossest 
insults may be heaped upon us in an unknown tongue, 
without disturbing our equanimity. They must pass into 
the idea before they can awaken feeling. 

No satisfactory classification of these feelings exists, 
and any detailed description would be superfluous. In- 
stead, then, of seeking a new classification, we shall do 
better to confine ourselves to a few general points of view. 
In any case, feelings are understood in themselves, and 
not in their classification. 

The physical organism has conditions of existence, which 
may be furthered or interfered with from without. Such 
furtherance or interference results in pleasure or pain. 
Again, there is an immanent law of development in the 
organism, whereby its unfolding is determined. Accord- 
ing as this inner tendency is helped or hindered, we experi- 
ence pleasure or pain. A widely received doctrine of the 
mental feelings attempts to explain them by applying this 
analogy to the mental organism. The mind, too, has condi- 
tions of well-being, and an immanent law of development ; 
and whatever meets these conditions or obeys this law 
gives rise to pleasurable experiences, while anything of 
opposite character gives rise to opposite experiences. A 
free and facile performance of mental functions results in 
feelings of pleasure or satisfaction, while opposite feelings 
attend repression and failure. As the body by its constitu- 
tion demands an alternation of rest and action as a condi- 
tion of its well-being, so the mind makes the same demand 
as a condition of its well-being. When the waking mind 
is inactive, or rather empty, there result feelings of tedium 
and ennui, which may rise to positive distress. The same 



192 PSYCHOLOGY. 

mental constitution calls for a certain measure of variety 
and uniformity of experience as a condition of pleasure. 
Monotony becomes wearisome ; too rapid change is confus- 
ing and painful. Within certain limits novelty is pleasing, 
and within certain limits the familiar is pleasing. 

This fact is the basis of the claim of Aristotle, reproduced 
also by Hamilton, that any unimpeded exercise of energy 
according to the laws of the faculty in question is pleasur- 
able, while the opposite is painful. Confused and obscure 
ideas are disagreeable ; clear and distinct ideas are agree- 
able. The reduction of unrelated phenomena to rational 
order is pleasing ; the inability so to reduce them is dis- 
pleasing. The discovery of unity in the manifold, or of har- 
mony in the discordant, is pleasing; the failure to find 
these elements is displeasing. In like manner, success or 
failure, furtherance or hindrance, in our activities, becomes 
a ground of feeling. Self-assertion and self-realization are 
the deepest necessities of life. Whatever furthers them 
produces complacency ; whatever hinders them gives rise 
to feelings varying from slight vexation to intense indig- 
nation. In all of these cases our tendencies are furthered 
or thwarted, and we feel pleasure or pain accordingly. 

In this conception mental feelings, like the physical, are 
functional ; that is, they arise from the performance of 
mental functions, and are pleasing or not as the form of 
activity agrees or disagrees with the nature of the faculty 
in question. There are many feelings of this kind. They 
spring directly either from our constitution or from the 
form of the mental function. Curiosity is a case of the 
former ; the excitement of gambling is a case of the lat- 
ter. There is an intenser feeling of life connected with 
emotional excitement, which is desired for its own sake ; 
and the desire for it may become a decided craving. Much 
of our interest in games of chance, in novel-reading, in the 
tragic drama, and even in some phases of religious experi- 
ence, has its root here. 



THE FEELINGS. 193 

But when this conception of feeling as functional is 
made universal, it becomes formal and empty. It is thus 
formal when applied to the large class of feelings which 
depend, not on the form of the mental function, but on the 
nature of the mental object. This is the case with all 
aesthetic emotion where the feeling is due to some quality 
of the object, and where, so far as we can see, there is no 
furtherance or hindrance of mental functions. Even our 
delight in knowing depends less on satisfying our constitu- 
tional curiosity than on finding something worth knowing. 
Knowing, simply as a form of mental activity, may be exer- 
cised upon the most insignificant objects. It is the nature 
of the thing known which is the great source of feeling. 
If, then, we insist that feeling is clue to agreement or dis- 
agreement with the laws of the mind, we must either make 
those laws include the object, or we must admit that often 
the only warrant for affirming an agreement or disagree- 
ment is our theory that feeling must be explained in that 
way. In either case the view becomes formal and barren. 

Without inquiring further why we feel, we pass to con- 
sider several important classes of feeling. These are (1.) the 
ego feelings, (2.) the social feelings, and (3.) the impersonal, 
or disinterested, feelings. The last class consists of the 
aesthetic feelings, the ethical feelings, and the religious 
feelings. Perhaps it would be better to regard these as 
three classes of elements which enter into our sensitive 
life, as in actual experience these elements often enter 
into one and the same emotional state, and seldom occur 
in isolation. They are proposed simply as points of view 
from which the feelings may be advantageously studied. 

In one sense all feelings which relate to the personal 
interests of the individual are ego feelings. Personal pains 
and pleasures, dislikes and aversions, exist only for their 
subject. But we prefer to reserve the title of ego feelings 
for another class, which depends not upon consciousness, 

13 



194 PSYCHOLOGY. 

but upon self-consciousness. These feelings are not elements 
of passive pain or pleasure, but exist only through their re- 
lation to our self-esteem and desire for self-assertion. The 
ego is at once their subject and their object. Hence they 
are pre-eminently the ego feelings. 

It is this relation to self which chiefly determines the 
value of an experience in the developed mental life. Both 
pleasures and pains, except purely physical ones, depend 
to a great extent on being connected with self as their 
subject. Thus, an athletic feat, a long tramp, a perilous 
climb up a mountain, are never estimated by the passive 
sensations attending them, but by the exaltation of self- 
feeling which results. We have a sense of power and 
efficiency, and delight in the deed as our own. Most of 
our plans and aims also have their value, not in their in- 
herent power to please us, but in the fact that they are 
ours. Few of our experiences have value in themselves, 
as passive gratifications of our sensibility ; their value lies 
rather in the element of personality which we have put into 
them. It is oversight of this fact which led to the strange 
proposal of Bentham to form an arithmetic of pleasures 
and pains, whereby the value of any experience could be de- 
termined. The sum of the pleasures minus the sum of the 
pains equals the value of the experience ; where pleasure 
and pain are supposed to be passive affections of the sensi- 
bility. This arithmetic vanishes when all significant values 
in experience are seen to be constituted by their relation 
to self in self-consciousness. The same oversight under- 
lies the shrewd surmise that probably a pig's lot is happier 
than that of a man. If there were nothing but passive 
gratifications of sense in life, this might well be the case. 
To increase knowledge may well increase sorrow, and the 
freeman may have a harder lot than the slave. But with 
men the comfort of ignorance, or slavery, or piggishness, 
is not valued in comparison with the exaltation of self- 



THE FEELINGS. 195 

feeling and self-respect which comes from knowledge and 
freedom and manhood. Indeed, the distinction between 
passive and active pleasures is so marked, that it has often 
been a dogma in ethics that the former are valueless and 
unworthy of desire and effort. In the former, the self is 
passive ; in the latter, it is active and self-determining. 
The passive pleasures are seldom without a suggestion of 
the animal. 

The same reference to self underlies a great variety of 
feelings of a less exalted kind. Apart from this self- 
consciousness, the pains of poverty, of social slights, etc. 
would be a vanishing quantity. On the other hand, the 
satisfactions of pride, vanity, and ambition would be nothing 
without the same reference. To secure the exaltation of 
self-feeling we are ready to submit to any passive discom- 
fort or to make any sacrifice. Failure in this effort is the 
world's great source of grief and heart-burning. It is this 
conception of self-consciousness which has led to the fa- 
miliar onslaughts upon it as the sum, or at least the root, 
of all evil. 

Since we can interpret others' experience only by our 
own, a broad and intense ego-life is the condition of any 
full and deep social life. It is only in our own conscious- 
ness that the meaning and value of life and its experiences 
can be revealed ; and without the knowledge of these there 
can be no sympathy for others and no understanding of 
them. Selfishness does not consist in valuing ourselves, 
but in ignoring the equal claims and rights of others. 

An equally great variety of feelings arises from our social 
nature. Here belong the social impulses and sentiments, 
in all their diversified forms. Psychological doctrinaires 
have displayed great ingenuity in deducing the social ele- 
ments of our nature from selfish necessities. An artificial 
and fictitious man has been constructed at great cost of 
time and labor. This being has been endowed with only 



196 PSYCHOLOGY. 

egoistic impulses, and then his creators have proceeded 
to turn him into a social and benevolent person. Being 
endowed with a desire for approbation, he seeks society 
that he may win approval. Having also a penetrating in- 
tellect, he soon sees that others are necessary to him in 
many ways; and his wise selfishness takes on the forms 
of benevolence. When this point is reached, the power 
and penetration of the psychological analysis are praised, 
and altruism is deduced from egoism. Unfortunately for 
this view, the social impulses manifest themselves so long 
before there is any hint of the profound insight presupposed, 
that it would hardly seem less absurd to claim that the 
cattle, or the ants, became gregarious in the same way. 
However possible it may be to reason out the selfish wis- 
dom of social action, it is sure that the race did not develop 
the social impulses in that way. Man is naturally selfish, 
and naturally social and sympathetic. There is provision 
in our nature both for selfishness and for society and mu- 
tual help. The whim that the natural state of man is the 
war of all against all was the conclusion of a theory rather 
than the expression of experience. Man seeks man and 
delights in man far more than man wars upon man. This 
primal man who reasoned himself into society is a near 
relative of the men who emerged from inhuman isolation 
and made the social contract which figured so largely in 
the political philosophy of the last century. The real func- 
tion of the various considerations of interest and mutual 
advantage which are appealed to, has not been to develop 
the social sentiments, but to extend their application beyond 
narrow family or tribal limits. 

The provision for social and unselfish existence is seen, 
first of all, in the nature of all human love, whether con- 
jugal, parental, filial, or the love of friendship. No one 
who has felt these emotions will ever view them as selfish ; 
and no one else has a voice. It is also seen in the law of 



THE FEELINGS. 197 

sympathy. Unless hindered by some disturbing or paralyz- 
ing conception, sympathy is natural and necessary. The 
provision for social life is ajDparent also in the faculty of 
language. The great function of language is exchange of 
thought, and would have no meaning in a solitary exist- 
ence. And thought itself is developed and continued only 
in and through society. Here the individual has his life ; 
and here learning and science and knowledge have their 
abiding source and seat. It used to be a favorite problem 
with the speculators of the last century to know what a 
human being would come to if brought up in isolation. 
Plainly he would never become a human being at all. 

The field of social relations is the sole field of the benevo- 
lent and malevolent impulses ; it is, too, the great field of 
the ego feelings. Indeed human life in general exists only 
in society. Of course there can be no society without the 
individual as its unit ; but the individual comes to himself 
only in society. On the one hand, we can understand others 
only by assimilating their life to ours ; but, on the other 
hand, our. own life is dormant until it is called out by the 
universal social stimulus. Opposite errors are traditional 
here. Some, forgetting that life must be experienced in 
ourselves before it can be found anywhere else, would 
make society the sufficient source of all individual experi- 
ence ; while others set the individual apart in a false self- 
sufficiency, and forget that without the social stimulus the 
mind of the individual would never unfold. 

The ego feelings have already been referred to as con- 
stituted by their relation to self ; but they demand society 
for their development. Obnoxious forms of egoism are 
made possible only by a comparison with others resulting 
in an assumption of superiority and an undue exaltation of 
self-esteem. Indeed, complete satisfaction is never reached 
until this superiority is in some way recognized by others. 
The self-worshipper takes little pleasure in subjective values 



198 PSYCHOLOGY. 

so long as they are unknown or unallowed by the rest of 
the world. There must be at least a prospective recogni- 
tion ; and no Mordecai can be tolerated at the gate. Pride 
or vanity is never content to be. It is never sufficient to 
itself, but lives on others' recognition. Thus it carries in 
itself its own contradiction and torment. 

The aesthetic feelings are another form of feeling which 
has a mental source. They represent a satisfaction or dis- 
satisfaction with our objects apart from their relation to our 
personal interests. Our feelings toward some things arise 
directly from our conception of their utility or inutility for 
us ; other feelings are independent of this personal refer- 
ence, and seem to depend upon an objective quality of the 
objects themselves. These are the aesthetic feelings ; and 
in this sense they are impersonal and objective, or rather 
disinterested. The feelings previously described represent 
only a state of our sensibility, and are not objectified as 
qualities of their objects. In the aesthetic feelings the mind 
is contemplative and disinterested. We do not need the 
object ; we do not prize it for its utility ; we are pleased to 
find that the object exists. 

The aesthetic feelings lie at the foundation of all aesthetic 
judgments ; for these at bottom only express a feeling of 
aesthetic satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our objects. A 
scruple is' sometimes raised as to the possibility of a judg- 
ment founded on feeling ; as feeling is said to be subjective 
and particular, while the judgment must be objective and 
universal. But there is no reason why there may not be 
universal elements in the sensibility as well as in the 
reason. Again, many of our judgments do but express 
in logical form a content which can be realized only in the 
sensibility. All judgments of sensation are of this kind. 
They have the forms of logic, but they can be understood 
only in sensible experience. And ultimately our aesthetic 
judgments rest upon a fact of the same sort, an immediate 



THE FEELINGS. 199 

feeling of delight or aversion. Of course, this feeling must 
be wrought out into systematic form before a science of 
aesthetics can be reached ; but without this feeling, the 
science would have no contents whatever. Perhaps it 
would be better to say that both intellect and sensibility 
are pure abstractions ; the reality being the rational and 
sensitive soul. If this soul were only sensitive, it would 
never reach an aesthetic judgment ; but if it were not sensi- 
tive, such judgment would be equally impossible. 

^Esthetic feeling appears in various forms : — 

The simplest form is in connection with sensation and 
movement. Colors, tones, odors, and rhythmic movement 
have an aesthetic value, both in themselves and still more in 
their combination, as in painting, music, rhythm, and the 
dance. It has been much questioned whether simple sensa- 
tions have any aesthetic significance, or whether they are 
only organically agreeable or disagreeable. It is indeed 
difficult in these cases to separate the aesthetic from the sim- 
ply agreeable ; but that they have an aesthetic value is clear 
from the fact that in higher aesthetic effects they constitute 
a necessary part of the whole. Compare the colorless en- 
graving with the painting ; or the same music on different 
instruments. At the same time, the aesthetic value of 
tones and colors lies chiefly in their combination and sym- 
bolism. Melody and harmony please, not only 'hy virtue 
of the separate tones, but also and mainly through the 
form of their combination. A piece of music played back- 
wards, or even in different time, would give the same 
sounds, but not the music. 

^Esthetic feeling further appears in connection with form 
and outline, especially as developed in drawing, architec- 
ture, and sculpture. Here we demand regularity, symme- 
try, and proportion, combined into an harmonious whole. 

Still another phase arises from the perception of certain 
relations of ideas. Here belong the feelings of the absurd, 



200 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the ridiculous, the comical, the witty, and of fitness and 
unfitness in general. Here the effect is entirely due to 
the relation, and not to the ideas themselves. 

^Esthetic feeling arises at times from the form, at others 
from the content, of our ideas. Symmetry, proportion, 
harmony, completeness, are examples of the former class. 
Truth, goodness, nobility, baseness, and vastness are exam- 
ples of the latter. In this class aesthetics rises into the 
realm of ethics and religion. 

^Esthetic feeling is especially aroused by whatever ex- 
presses or symbolizes the life, the aspirations, the solemn 
forebodings, the deep experiences of the soul. This is the 
source of our highest interest in the tragic drama. The 
aesthetic value of nature, also, lies chiefly in its deep sym- 
bolism of thought and life. Poetry in general is little more 
than a working out of this symbolism. Music also aims to 
do the same thing. The mind is pleased with whatever ex- 
presses thought or purpose, or with whatever gives form to 
its own inner life. This is the meaning of Plato's claim 
that the mind alone is beautiful ; it also explains the claim 
often made, that the beautiful must be an adequate realiza- 
tion of an "idea." Even that which in itself is disagreeable 
or ugly may have profound significance because of its power 
to symbolize. Darkness and storm, the restless ocean and 
the desert waste, are illustrations. A broken column in a 
building is utterly ugly ; in a cemetery, it may have a sad 
significance. 

It is at this point that we find the significance of asso- 
ciation for aesthetics. Association itself does not produce 
aesthetic ideas, but it largely conditions their application ; 
for example, the human form as a simple figure in space 
could not lay claim to striking beauty. It acquires its 
chief aesthetic significance from connection with the life 
within. In itself it has beauty of symmetry, proportion, 
adaptation of parts and functions ; but this is insignificant 



THE FEELINGS. 201 

compared with its symbolic value. The same is true of 
music. A melody in itself insignificant may affect us 
powerfully from being a national air, or connected with 
our past history, or associated with certain words and 
ideas. 

The complexity of the sources of aesthetic feeling makes 
the aesthetic problem correspondingly complex. It also ex- 
plains in some measure the diversity of aesthetic judgments. 
We find simply sensuous elements, purely intellectual rela- 
tions, the opposition of form and meaning, and a symbol- 
izing function entering into aesthetic experience ; and any 
one of these may be emphasized to the neglect or exclusion 
of the rest. Hence, one-sided and often mistaken aesthetic 
judgments. In music, the intellectual and symbolic ele- 
ments may be exaggerated, and the sensuous element ne- 
glected. The result is music highly intellectual and full of 
meaning, but needing an interpreter, and unable to please. 
Or, on the other hand, the sensuous element may be made 
supreme ; and the outcome is a tiresome and cloying sweet- 
ness. So in art and literature, the form may be exalted 
above the content, or the content above the form ; and in 
both cases the result is failure. A brilliant treatment is 
offered as the justification of an ignoble or worthless sub- 
ject ; and a good meaning is made to apologize for stupid- 
ity and awkwardness. For the highest aesthetic effect there 
must be a satisfaction of the entire nature. A worthy 
matter must be married to a fitting form. Diversity of 
aesthetic judgment is further due to the fact that the judg- 
ment is often not properly aesthetic. We may be pleased, 
not with the thing, but with the treatment, the technical 
skill, and very often with our own ability to detect that 
skill. Much apparent delight in music and painting is of 
this sort, and is really only a reflex of vanity. 

Why do objects please us aesthetically ? Various answers 
are given, but no one is adequate to a complete solution of 



202 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the question. Physiology offers to explain the elementary 
aesthetic feelings as the result of agreement or disagree- 
ment with the conditions of nervous action and physical 
well-being in general. Others have found the one principle 
of beauty in the perception of unity in variety, or harmony 
in the manifold. The further claim is made, that aesthetic 
feeling is built up out of agreeable or disagreeable personal 
feelings, which by association are connected with their 
causes. Thereafter the latter are viewed as beautiful or 
ugly. This is the utilitarian conception. 

Physiological aesthetics has the full indorsement of the 
Zeitgeist, but is not so successful with analysis. Thus, 
discord is ugly, concord is pleasing ; and the explanation 
offered is, that discordant sounds in some way transgress 
the conditions of nervous action, while harmonious sounds 
agree with them. Of course, if this were so, we should 
have no explanation of the mental effect ; for we have seen 
that no nervous state explains any mental state as an an- 
alytical implication of itself; but allowing that nervous 
states may give rise to mental states, we may seek the 
ground of the aesthetic effect in the nerves. But it is very 
doubtful if this view is adequate. To begin with, there 
is no proof that a simple noise is more injurious to the 
nerves than a musical note ; and especially there is no proof 
that harmonious sounds are especially advantageous to the 
nerves. The explanation is not only hypothetical, but the 
data of the explanation are hypothetical also. 

Moreover, the view is far from being as simple as it 
seems. Suppose two notes to be struck which singly are 
not unpleasing, but together are discordant. We assume, 
then, that the nervous processes corresponding to the notes 
are in some way prejudicial to nervous well-being when 
occurring together. But in order that this fact shall exist 
for us, it must in some way affect us by the production of 
unpleasant feeling. We need then, first, a synchronous 



THE FEELINGS. 203 

production of the two notes ; second, a production of un- 
pleasant feeling by the abnormal nervous process ; and, 
third, a distribution of this feeling over the notes which 
thus appear as discordant or unpleasing. Our delight in 
harmony would be explained in the same way. We should 
have the separate nerve processes corresponding to the 
notes, then a resultant nerve process which, without modi- 
fying the others, should be particularly grateful to the 
nerves, then a production of pleasant feeling by this pro- 
cess, and, finally, a reference of this feeling to the original 
notes. 

Now, remembering that the data of this explanation are 
hypothetical, it really does not cast a very strong light upon 
this simple problem. And if two nervous processes can give 
rise to a third process different from either, and grateful 
or otherwise to the nerves, it does not seem impossible that 
two sensational processes might give rise in the mind itself 
to a third process, the aesthetic feeling, and that without 
having recourse to the nerves. We renew our protesta- 
tions of appreciation of physiology, but fail to see that it 
has cast much light upon this problem. 

The attempts to make aesthetic feeling depend upon some 
single principle, as the perception of unity in variety, over- 
look the elementary aesthetic feelings altogether, and the 
complexity and manifoldness of the aesthetic scale. 

In the utilitarian conception, it is not plain whether aes- 
thetic feelkig is the perception of utility, or arises from 
it. Neither view finds any justification except in the expe- 
rience of the unimaginative and prosaic. Apart from such 
pathologic cases, the love of the beautiful, at least in the 
form of personal adornment, is a marked feature of hu- 
manity, even in its savage and infantile stages ; and Mr. 
Darwin has made it a factor even in animal development. 

The best answer to the question why objects please us 
aesthetically lies in the remark, already quoted from Plato, 



204 PSYCHOLOGY. 

that the mind only is beautiful. That is, the soul delights 
in itself ; and hence it is pleased with whatever expresses, 
or embodies, or symbolizes its own inner life. Regularity, 
symmetry, proportion, harmony, please because they ac- 
cord with and express the orderly nature of intelligence. 
The great symbolisms of light and sound, of sky and 
sea, of hills and plains, are of perennial significance ; as 
only in them do the ^dumb souls of men find adequate 
expression. 

The boundaries of the aesthetic realm do not admit of 
being sharply drawn. Accordingly, there is no agreement 
as to where the aesthetic scale begins or ends, or as to its 
internal divisions. Many deny aesthetic character to sen- 
sations altogether, and confine aesthetics entirely to intel- 
lectual relations. Still, as we have seen, high aesthetic 
effects are often dependent on purely sensible effects, 
either directly presented or indirectly suggested. A land- 
scape in outline is lifeless. The color, the light, the 
warmth, the life, must be there to produce any marked 
effect. The attempts to divide the aesthetic scale into 
sharply separated divisions is equally unfortunate, and 
leads to various arbitrary dicta on the part of critics, few 
of which are recognized by unsophisticated feeling. 

In truth, the aesthetic scale is highly complex, and 
stretches all the way from the agreeable in sensation up to 
the sublime in thought and action. In the negative direc- 
tion, it extends from the disagreeable in sensation to the 
terrible and awful in thought and action. Nor is it possi- 
ble to draw lines upon the scale where one form ends and 
another begins. As the colors of the spectrum shade into 
one another and yet are different, or as heat and cold are 
antithetical ideas and yet have no fixed frontier, so the 
system of aesthetic ideas presents a set of fixed and graded 
conceptions without allowing us sharply to determine their 
precise limits. 



THE FEELINGS. 205 

Attempts to reduce the aesthetic feelings to some single 
form abound. In such cases, the classifying and simplify- 
ing tendency of the mind plays a trick upon us. The very 
essence of a feeling is to be felt ; and feelings which are 
felt to be different are different. But when feelings show 
some common element, we gather them into a class, from 
which their specific differences have been excluded; and 
then all the conditions for a penetrating psychological 
analysis are present. We forthwith mistake the logical 
universal for a reality ; and then conclude that the specific 
feelings are all phases of this one universal and undiffer- 
entiated feeling. The analysis is complete and successful. 
"We should reason with equal profundity, if we deduced all 
specific horses from the universal horse. This is the per- 
ennial mistake of sensationalism. Quite unconsciously, the 
universal is taken as the starting-point, and then real ex- 
perience is deduced from it. But it is well to remind our- 
selves occasionally that there is no feeling in general; 
that the reality is always specific feelings, each with its 
specific quality and coloring ; and that no amount of logi- 
cal classifying can abolish these differences, or make them 
other than they are. Even our aesthetic feelings are com- 
plex and manifold, and vary with the objects themselves. 
There is no common beauty, but each beautiful thing is 
beautiful in its own way. There is beauty of form, of tone, 
of color, of sentiment, of action, of character ; and none of 
these have any common element beyond the fact that we 
delight in them all. At the same time, our delight has a 
specific and peculiar quality in each class of cases. But 
psychology has not yet freed itself from the blunders of 
scholastic realism. 

The moral feelings agree with the aesthetic feelings in 
expressing a satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the presence 
of certain conceptions. They differ especially (1.) in the 
sense of obligation which is inherent in the moral feelings, 



206 PSYCHOLOGY. 

and (2.) in the sense of merit or demerit which attends 
the resultant action. The perception of the good carries 
obligation, or contains an implicit law for conduct ; the 
perception of the beautiful does not. The former com- 
mands the will ; the latter delights the sensibility. Never- 
theless, the two run closely together. The good is the 
highest beauty ; and the beautiful in action and character is 
the morally good. If, then, we were seeking for the ideal 
law of life, it would be indifferent whether we sought for 
it as the beautiful or as the good. Many of our so-called 
moral judgments are properly aesthetic, referring to the 
beauty or harmony of the life, rather than to the merit or 
righteousness of the person. 

Ethical study may take two directions. First, we may 
study the actual manifestation and development of the 
moral nature : this is the psychology of ethics. Second, 
we study the conditions or postulates of an ethical system 
assumed to be rationally consistent and defensible : this 
is the metaphysics of ethics. Our present concern is with 
the psychology. 

The universal ethical fact is the recognition of a dis- 
tinction between right and wrong in conduct, and a result- 
ing sense of obligation. Traced to its root, this depends 
upon a feeling of approval or disapproval in connection 
with the aims and principles of conduct. As long as these 
are unrecognized, there is no moral life. As long as they 
are unclearly perceived, there are only the germs of a moral 
life. When they are brought out into clear recognition, 
the self-conscious moral life begins. Out of this basal feel- 
ing, the ideal of life and the law of conduct spring. 

It is often objected that feeling cannot be a basis for 
ethics, because feeling is particular while ethical law must 
be universal, and hence must be founded in reason. This 
is merely a war of words. If there were no sentient beings, 
all conduct would be indifferent ; and when we ask for the 



THE FEELINGS. 207 

right principles of conduct, we can only represent the 
motives and aims of action to ourselves, and wait for the 
immediate feeling of approval or disapproval to manifest 
itself. As to the universality, the fact is not made univer- 
sal by calling it an utterance of the reason ; nor is it made 
less than universal by calling it feeling. Its universality 
depends upon its content, and not upon its psychological 
classification. It is indeed true, that if man did nothing but 
feel, there would be no science of ethics ; but it is equally 
true, that if man never felt, there would be no science of 
ethics. We have here the mistake, already referred to, of 
holding feeling and reason apart in unreal separation. 

Simple harmony with the ideal is beautiful even if con- 
stitutional, just as good health may be. The failure to 
reach such harmony is unsatisfactory, however meritorious 
the person may be. The ideal commands perfection and 
condemns all below it. Hence many have thought that ob- 
ligation might transcend ability. This, justice rejects with 
indignation ; and yet it is the most prominent fact of moral 
experience that to do the best we can satisfies no one. 
This is due to the fact that the ideal as such is aesthetic, 
and takes no account of ability, but only of perfection 
or imperfection. Ethics, on the other hand, while get- 
ting its law from the ideal, is forced to limit its actual 
requirements to the ability of the agents. This double 
point of view underlies some chronic disputes in ethics 
and theology. 

The secondary moral feelings are those which result 
from obedience or disobedience to moral law. When the 
action is our own, we have the sense of merit or demerit, 
of personal worthiness or baseness, of remorse, shame, etc. 
When the action is another's, we have feelings varying all 
the way from profound esteem and approbation to intense 
indignation, according to the circumstances. These feel- 
ings are highly variable, and admit of all degrees of in- 



208 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tensity, according to the nature of the deed itself and the 
grade of moral development. 

The double standard referred to produces a double set of 
feelings to correspond. When we compare ourselves with 
the ideal, we have a feeling of imperfection and unworthi- 
ness. This arises from the opposition between what we are 
and the ideal perfection. When we measure ourselves by 
the standard of ability, we may have a feeling of innocence 
or of guilt, of merit or of demerit. These feelings depend 
upon the relation of our deed to our power to do. The 
former set of feelings may exist in an intense form without 
any sense of guilt. In general, they are found only where 
there has been a good degree of moral development. 

Of course deductions and reductions of the moral senti- 
ments abound. The method employed is that dwelt upon 
at so great length in a previous chapter. They are identi- 
fied with their conditions or with some of their attendants, 
or something else is called by their name, or their suc- 
cessive and conditioned genesis is identified with the trans- 
formation of non-moral elements into them. Heredity and 
the chemistry of ideas also play their well-known part; 
and finally comes the great act of faith which is the su- 
preme condition of success in the transformation. The 
procedure is purely verbal. If we begin with a soul capa- 
ble only of selfish, or social, or prudential considerations, 
there is no way of getting beyond them. Our sense of 
duty, then, must be identified with pity, or sympathy, or 
fear of punishment, or fear of public opinion, or desire of 
esteem, or considerations of prudence, or some other non- 
moral element. But this identification is impossible ; for 
the sense of duty refuses to coalesce with any of the things 
mentioned ; and the surest proof that different feelings are 
different is the fact that they are given as different. But 
if we set out to deduce the moral sentiments from non- 
moral antecedents, the data lie dead and motionless as long 



THE FEELINGS. 209 

as the soul is supposed to have fully expressed itself in 
them. To reach any progress, we must once more assume 
that these data are in interaction with a mental nature 
which transcends them, and which under certain conditions 
manifests itself in new forms. Without this assumption, 
our deduction is as absurd as the attempt to deduce chemi- 
cal action from atoms whose nature is supposed to be ex- 
hausted in simple gravitation. Who knows what might not 
happen in such a case, if the atoms had much experience? 

Verbal ambiguity, also, is ready to help us out. We can 
define beneficence as doing things for others, and this we 
may call altruism. Then we may show that a wise egoism 
must lead us to do things for others ; and thus we tran- 
scend egoism and deduce altruism. Of course, such al- 
truism is purely egoistic, and has absolutely nothing in 
common with that principle which commands us to let 
others' rights and happiness weigh as much as our own ; 
but we may call it altruism in a special sense, and then 
quietly drop the limitation. We may not notice the fal- 
lacy ourselves ; and our readers will almost certainly fail 
to do so. 

Finally, we may attempt to deduce morality by confining 
our attention to external conduct. What we think right or 
wrong in outward action depends very largely upon custom, 
tradition, and society in general. Society, then, may be 
called the source of the individual's code, and hence of his 
morality. Right and wrong, then, are the creation of soci- 
ety. But external conduct is not the sum of morality ; and 
this view has to provide for the internal sentiments and 
sanctions connected with the notion of duty. For this it 
can only fall back upon the chemistry of ideas, and seek to 
transform non-moral elements into moral ones ; or it must 
attempt to identify our sense of duty with fear of punish- 
ment, or of public opinion, etc. In either case there is 
utter failure. 

14 



210 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The actual development of moral sentiments and ideas is 
a slow and complicated process, into which all the factors 
enter by which the associationalist seeks to explain it. 
The moral element itself is originally given only as a germi- 
nal potentiality, and not as a completed and systematic 
insight. Its right development depends upon a great many 
favoring circumstances. Attaching fundamentally to the 
aims and motives of conduct, it has but little scope until 
these aims and motives have acquired some complexity and 
richness of content. It must next be specified into codes 
of life and conduct which shall correspond to the ideal law 
within. In this process there is the most complex and pro- 
found interaction between the moral and the intellectual 
nature. Our experience of consequences, our knowledge of 
tendencies, our underlying world-view, all enter into the 
formation of our codes. This accounts in great measure 
for the discordant moral history of mankind. We believe 
in an ethical development both of the individual and of the 
race ; we deny only that this development is possible without 
assuming an original ethical germ, or predisposition, in the 
mind, which contains, not indeed an unconditioned princi- 
ple, but an immanent law, of moral development. 

The religious sentiments are closely connected with the 
ethical. They differ especially in this, that the former are 
explicitly directed toward some supernatural being or beings 
conceived as personal, while the latter do not immediately 
contain such reference. When the idea of God is given, the 
moral law is almost inevitably thought as expressing His 
will ; and this has led many to claim that the moral nature 
immediately reveals a Holy Person as its author ; but this 
is an exaggeration. 

Since religious feeling is thus connected with the concep- 
tion of supernatural personality, we have first to inquire 
where this conception comes from. 

Experience does not reveal its source. History finds it 



THE FEELINGS. 211 

everywhere present; and wherever we find man, we find 
him in possession of it in some form. • Nor is it derived 
from argument; for all argument presupposes its exist- 
ence. The so-called proofs of the being of God originate 
nothing, but attempt only to determine the authority of an 
idea already existing. Religious progress has never con- 
sisted in finding the idea of God, but in elevating and 
purifying that idea. The idea of the supernatural, like the 
idea of right and duty, is universal ; but, like that idea 
again, its content is not clearly defined. Both ideas have 
a formal position of authority, from which they will never 
consent to be degraded ; but both ideas also may be very 
imperfectly conceived. 

Only hypothetical answers can be given to the question. 
One of these is that the idea of the supernatural arises 
from the deification of natural objects, as the sun, the 
heavens, etc. This does not much advance the matter, as 
it amounts only to saying that the idea arises from regard- 
ing the natural as supernatural. It presupposes the idea 
of the supernatural in at least some vague form. Sense 
objects must always be taken as they appear, until some 
transforming idea is found elsewhere. If we have darkly 
lurking in us some conception of divine power, it would be 
easy to regard sense objects as symbols thereof; but until 
then the sun can only be taken as a luminous disk, the idol 
as a stick or stone, and neither can be regarded as divine. 

Another answer has been that the idea of a supernatural 
realm first arose through the phenomena of dreams and 
apparitions. They suggested the notion of a ghostly exist- 
ence, and, when the idea once got afloat, it was speedily 
taken up, and by degrees wrought out into the various 
forms of religious conception. These are all sublimated 
forms of an original belief in ghosts. Such a view might 
be entertained if it were demonstrated that the supernatural 
in the religious sense does not exist; but even then we 



212 PSYCHOLOGY. 

could not explain the universality of the belief without as- 
suming that there is something in human nature which de- 
mands it and to which it corresponds. It would require too 
much faith to believe that a conception purely adventitious 
and fictitious could secure such spread and pre-eminence. 

At the opposite extreme is the view that the existence of 
God is immediately revealed, either in feeling or in intuition. 
This view arises from the failure of other views, rather than 
from any psychological observation. Neither the feeling 
nor the intuition can be pointed out. A feeling as such is 
only a state of the sensibility, and can only inferentially 
give information about objects. That we have no such in- 
tuition appears from the fact that men have generally 
sought to prove the existence of God. No one argues to 
prove what every one immediately sees. 

The last view must take on the following form. The 
human mind is such that as the outcome of its total experi- 
ence it forms the conception of the supernatural, not as the 
result of conscious inferential processes, but as an expres- 
sion of its own needs and nature. As the result of some 
sensations, we posit a world of things ; as the result of 
others, we posit a world of persons ; as a result of our to- 
tal experience, Ave posit God. The result is not the out- 
come of logical compulsion, but of a certain psychological 
necessity expressed, in the nature of our intelligence. It is 
not made or deduced, but grows out of life itself. This view 
is the only one which clearly accounts for the universality 
and persistence of the idea. 

But with the bare affirmation of the supernatural, the 
religious problem is by no means solved. The idea has 
next to be defined so as to meet the demands made upon 
it. In this work all the factors of our complex nature 
work together. Each faculty has its special ideal, and God 
is the ideal of the whole nature, or the ideal of ideals. 
The intellect demands unity, and contributes its ideal of 



THE FEELINGS. 213 

perfect reason and insight. The conscience furnishes its 
ideal of perfect righteousness and holiness. The aesthetic 
nature furnishes its ideal of perfect beauty and harmony. 
The heart furnishes its ideal of goodness and love. These 
are all united in the thought of God, the ideal of religion. 
When this is impossible, there is discord in our nature, 
with resulting dissatisfaction. As long as any claim of heart 
or conscience or intellect is unrecognized, there can be no 
abiding peace. But when all the claims of our many-sided 
nature are united in the thought of an all-wise and holy God 
of love, our whole nature is at peace, and each faculty finds 
its claims at once recognized and assured. The intellect 
finds its highest support and warrant in the thought of the 
Eternal Reason at the root of things. The conscience rests 
secure in the thought of a throne of righteousness which 
can never be overturned, a Holy Will which can be neither 
defied nor mocked. The aesthetic nature finds its full sat- 
isfaction, and the heart finds an object worthy of everlast- 
ing love. The clearing up of the idea has been a long and 
complex process, into which many factors have entered, 
the most prominent being the Christian revelation. But 
the implicit aim of the process has been to reach a religious 
conception in which all the demands of our nature, voli- 
tional, aesthetic, affectional, and intellectual, should find at 
once recognition and fulfilment. A great variety of feel- 
ings and interests lead to the religious conception ; and 
it in turn reacts upon them,, and raises them to a higher 
form of development, and gives them greater power. When 
the conception is unworthy, it reacts upon the life, some- 
times with an awful force of degradation, and sometimes 
it leads to a blighting of the religious impulse and a with- 
ering of the emotional nature. 

The feelings thus far considered are primary, that is, 
they spring immediately from experience without the need 
of any mental work beyond that involved in the experi- 



214 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ence itself. But after they have been experienced, they 
may be conceived as possible in a future experience, and 
thus may give rise to desire and aversion, hope and fear. 
When they are connected with the thought of their causes, 
these also become objects of desire or aversion, hope or 
fear. These feelings are conditioned by simple experiences 
of pain or pleasure in past experience, and so far as they 
apply to objects they depend upon the conception of the 
objects as related to our well-being. Where there is no 
knowledge, neither desire nor aversion, neither hope nor 
fear, is possible. The desires themselves admit of all 
degrees of intensity ; and according as they are gratified 
or not, they give rise to a boundless variety of feelings, both 
pleasurable and painful. 

As thus understood, the desires are plainly secondary, 
being conditioned (1.) upon previous experience of pain or 
pleasure, and, (2.) as far as they relate to things, upon a 
knowledge of the causes of those experiences and of their 
relation to our own interests. The desire for power, wealth, 
place, etc. is entirely dependent upon their relation in some 
way to our happiness or purposes. Simple possession as 
such counts for nothing, even with the miser. If it were 
not for the gratification, implicit or potential, in his hoards, 
the miser would lose all interest in them. But, as in the 
fixed order of life the connection between the objects of 
desire and our gratification is tolerably constant, the for- 
mer seem often to be passionately desired for their own 
sake. The love of money is a striking example. Never- 
theless, the secondary nature of such objects of desire is 
manifest. 

A dispute exists as to the object of desire. Is it the 
pleasure, or the thing which gives it ? For partisan rea- 
sons, it has often been claimed that the object of desire is 
always pleasure, and that the object is desired only for the 
pleasure it gives. Amount of pleasure being equal, one 



THE FEELINGS. 215 

thing is as desirable as another, or, as Bentham put it, 
" push-pin is as good as poetry." 

The claim in this form assumes the commensurability, 
or rather the essential identity, of pleasures. This rests, 
in turn, upon a scholastic hypostasis of a class term. 
Pleasure is pleasure, no doubt, and so are metals metals ; 
but, as belonging to a common class in the latter case does 
not exclude incommensurable differences among metals, 
so belonging to a common class in the former case does 
not exclude specific and incommensurable differences among 
pleasures. In fact there is no common pleasure to which 
all things minister in varying degrees, and by which their 
worth can be measured. This is purely a fiction of doctri- 
naires who have eyes only for their own theory ; or rather 
it is the old scholastic blunder of mistaking the logical 
universal for the common element out of which particular 
experiences are made. 

The question whether we desire the thing or the pleasure 
it produces further assumes that these objects are separable 
in reality, which is far from being always the case. When 
we are dealing with external objects which have only a 
utilitarian value, the separation is possible ; and the object 
is desired because of that value. But when we are dealing 
with aesthetic objects, or our own powers and faculties, the 
separation is impossible. Do we desire the beautiful object, 
or only the delight in beauty ? Do we desire to know, or 
only the pleasure of knowing ? In such cases the suggested 
separation is absurd. To be sure, if we lost aesthetic or 
intellectual interest, we should lose the corresponding de- 
sires ; but the desires themselves have no meaning when 
separated from those objects or mental functions in which 
alone they are realized. We conclude, then, on the one 
hand, that nothing would be desired if there were no 
pleasure connected with it, and, on the other hand, that this 
pleasure is often so connected with the thing as to have no 



216 PSYCHOLOGY. 

meaning when separated from it. The pleasure is but an 
evaluation of the thing in question, and like all values 
presupposes the thing. 

The relation of feeling and desire to other objects is 
highly variable, especially in intensity. We can repress or 
exalt feeling, and we can direct desire. The physical feel- 
ings may change from pleasure to pain, or conversely, with 
the same object ; and many of our mental likes and dis- 
likes are equally unstable. Practice and habit make many 
things agreeable, and even necessary, which at the begin- 
ning were positively distasteful. The development of so- 
ciety shows similar changes, especially in a willingness 
to work. In a consciousness not preoccupied with aims, 
plans, ambitions, ideals, the passive emotional elements 
would be fairly constant, at least in character; but the 
actual consciousness of mature life is thus preoccupied. 
The mind cares less for passive satisfactions than for the 
feelings which attend active self-assertion, or self-realization. 
Hence the leading interests of the mind are connected with 
those objects or aims to which it has given once for all an 
abiding value, or which it has made the standard of its 
action. Here the interest increases with the self-devotion ; 
and the devotion grows with the interest. Such a state of 
mind is more than a simple desire ; it represents a funda- 
mental interest or disposition of the mind. It is in the 
nature of these interests that character is especially re- 
vealed. They modify profoundly the nature of the emo- 
tional life, and give it a general direction. 

The feelings, then, are not invariable outcomes of their 
cognitive conditions, but to a very considerable extent 
admit of direction and control. This control, however, is 
not immediate, but indirect, through the direction of atten- 
tion. The feeling which cannot be driven off by immediate 
volition can be outflanked by directing the attention else- 
where. And here the fact appears, that there is an ideal 



THE FEELINGS. 217 

order implicit in the soul, according to which the feelings 
should be regulated. We demand that we feel toward our 
objects in proportion to their rank and worth. To be in- 
terested solely in physical goods, is the mark of an animal 
life. To be enthusiastic over the insignificant, is a form of 
folly which finds its perfection in the fool. To be cold and 
indifferent toward the highest, indicates either an atrophy, 
or a distortion, of the emotional nature. The indifferent 
must be treated with indifference ; the commonplace must 
not be exalted ; enthusiasm and devotion belong only to 
noble objects ; and wrath must be reserved for injustice, 
baseness, and degradation. 

Experience first acquires living reality in feeling. A 
mental life in which ideas should succeed one another 
while the mental subject remained utterly indifferent, 
would be utterly mechanical and meaningless. A voli- 
tional life of equal indifference would be equally worthless. 
These mental functions become personal and significant 
only as our feelings and interests inform them with life 
and meaning. And, in general, all values and all goods 
exist as such only in the sensibility. Apart from this, 
there is no reason for desiring one thing rather than 
another, or for saying that one thing or state is better 
than another. Will and understanding have no signifi- 
cance except as instruments of this throbbing and aspiring 
sensitive life. 

The desires and their opposites form the transition from 
knowing to willing. In feeling and knowing, we have the 
condition of desire ; and in desire, we have the condition of 
proper volition. Our feelings and interests are the deepest 
thing in us. They furnish the great impulses to action, 
and they also outline its direction. The great distinction 
between the human and the brute mind lies less in the 
cognitive faculties than in the motive powers. Man can 
interest himself in truth, in righteousness, in beauty, in a 



218 PSYCHOLOGY. 

great variety of ideal aims, which thus become the norms 
and guides of his action. For these basal interests, the 
intellect is simply instrumental, and the will is merely 
executive. Because of this relation of the desires to voli- 
tion, they have often been classed together, but improperly. 
A desire, as a state of feeling, has no element of will in it ; 
but only the conditions of willing in a volitional being. 

The aim of this chapter has not been to furnish a classi- 
fication of feelings, but to describe the various elements 
which enter as constituent factors into our emotional life. 
Of course, it is not meant that they occur in this separate- 
ness in experience. Actual sensitive states are variously 
compounded, and form a complex web into which many 
forms of feeling enter. 



WILL AND ACTION. 219 



CHAPTER VI. 

WILL AND ACTION. 

The spontaneous consciousness of the race as revealed 
in language distinguishes a realm of mental passivity and 
one of mental activity. In the former, we are acted upon ; 
in the latter, we act. To the former belong all the affec- 
tions of the sensibility, and the rise and association of 
ideas. To the latter belong thinking proper, and all activity 
directed toward external objects. The same spontaneous 
consciousness has further distinguished from knowing and 
feeling a third great form of mental manifestation as will- 
ing. This is the next subject of our study. 

The assumption of willing is so interwoven into thought 
and speech, that language would be wrecked by its removal, 
or at least very greatly modified. Hence, no psychologists 
venture to deny the existence of willing as a form of inter- 
nal experience, though they differ widely as to what the 
will may be. Some, as Schopenhauer and Hartmann, ex- 
tend willing even to unconscious activities ; others, as Spi- 
noza, and, to a great extent, Leibnitz, regard it as only a 
form of cognition ; and still others, as Herbart, regard it 
as the form of interaction among our ideas, — a view which 
has been modified by some physiological psychologists so 
as to make will the form of interaction among the nascent 
motor impulses in the nerves which are supposed to attend 
our mental states. All of these views, however, are deduc- 
tions from some general metaphysical or psychological the- 
ory, rather than formulations of psychological facts. We 
shall do better to begin with the facts. 



220 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Not all of activity is volitional. In one sense, all forms 
of mental experience, including even sensations, are modes 
of action ; as they express a mental reaction against either 
external or internal stimuli. The mind when passive is 
not properly inactive ; but the form of its activity is deter- 
mined by its circumstances, according to some fixed law. 
Popular thought, however, recognizes activity only where 
some external change is produced, or where the mental 
current is changed or directed by volition. We are said to 
be passive when the ground of our state is other than our- 
selves ; and active when we ourselves are that ground. 

But not all of this activity is volitional. A good part 
of our external activity is of a reflex nature, and follows 
its antecedents by uniform law. Within the mind, also, 
the desires and appetites form a complex series of impulses 
to action, which tend of themselves to pass into activity 
without any volition of ours. A large part of our activity 
is of this sort, and may be called constitutional or mechan- 
ical. Its general characteristic is that it follows uniformly 
from its antecedents, according to fixed law. Such activity 
is not recognized by the common consciousness as voli- 
tional ; and we can call it such only by a violent wrenching 
of terms. This has, indeed, been done ; and all active re- 
action against stimuli, whether internal or external, has 
been referred to will. In this way even reflex action has 
been brought under the head of willing ; but at the same 
time willing has been reduced to the plane of reflex action. 
All that such violent assaults upon language result in is 
the possibility of confusing the subject and the student. 

This constitutional activity is highly complex. In con- 
nection with the body we have simple reaction, largely de- 
termined by the structure of the nervous system. We also 
have the physical appetites and impulses which furnish the 
ground for highly complex mental reaction, Within the 
mind, also, we have stimuli to action in the simple pains 



WILL AND ACTION. 221 

and pleasures, and still others in the constitutional needs 
and impulses of the mind itself. These precede volitional 
activity, and are only partially subject to volitional control. 
There is no need to describe them in detail. 

For these constitutional feelings which determine the 
mind to action we have no single word in English. We 
call them appetites, impulse's, instincts, etc. Their nature 
is well expressed by their German name, Trieb, Or Natur- 
trieb. This brings their driving or impelling character to 
light. 

But above and beyond this mechanical or constitutional 
activity, the common consciousness recognizes a form of 
volitional action. This is not a wish, or a desire, or a con- 
stitutional impulse, though it may spring from any of these 
as a condition. It is also not a cognition or a judgment, 
though it may spring from these too. It is not a feeling of 
pain or of pleasure, though such a feeling may lead to it. 
In short, a volition is a volition, and cannot be explained 
or understood through anything else. 

It is highly important to distinguish volition from its 
psychological attendants. Because volition is often based 
on a judgment, it is concluded that a volition is a judgment. 
Yet the two are sharply distinguished, both in their psycho- 
logical nature and in their direction. The perception, or 
judgment, that a given course of action is wiser than an- 
other, is by no means a willing of the same. The former 
may exist without the latter, and the latter may contradict 
the former. Again, because volition often springs from 
desire and the accompanying impulse to action, it is often 
identified with desire. This is the traditional confusion. 
Nevertheless, these two also are distinct, both in their char- 
acter and, at times, in their direction. A thing may be 
most strongly desired without being willed, either because 
we perceive the thing desired to be impossible, or in conflict 
with prudence, or with other plans, or with our ethical 



222 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ideas. In this case desire does not include a volition. 
Again, we often oppose our will to our desires, so as to 
repress, or at least resist them. All exhortations to pru- 
dence, to self-control, to righteousness, rest upon the 
assumed possibility of doing this. Here the volition is not 
only distinct from the desires, it appears as the expression 
of an energy directed toward their resistance and control. 
In short, we may sum the conception of will as it exists 
for spontaneous thought before any theories have been 
formed about it in the notion of a power of self-control. 
The will is the power which the soul has of controlling 
itself within certain limits, and a volition is an act of such 
control. Within those limits the soul can elicit or guide, 
intensify or repress, its activities, according to a precon- 
ceived rule, or for the realization of a preconceived end. 

Volitional action is conditioned by consciousness. Un- 
conscious action is regarded as volitional only by those 
who war upon the conventions of language ; and even they 
understand volitional in some esoteric sense. The only 
clear notion which can be attached to unconscious willing 
is that of a necessary agent, which may act with adaptation 
to its environment, yet without becoming any less blind 
and mechanical. Even if we call such action spontaneous, 
we can only mean thereby that it arises from impulses 
which originate within the agent itself ; but it is no less 
blind and necessary in such a case than when it is a reflex 
action against external action. Generally, volition implies 
foresight and intention ; in all cases it implies conscious- 
ness. When the emotional or other disturbance is so 
great as to make foresight and intention impossible, or 
when there has not been sufficient mental development to 
provide for them, the activity is generally regarded as non- 
volitional. 

In spontaneous thought, volitional activity is always 
regarded as free. This arises partly from the peculiar con- 



WILL AND ACTION. 223 

sciousness we have in such activity of being the cause and 
source of the activity. In conducting, for example, a 
train of thought, we have a very clear conviction that it 
depends upon our volition whether it shall go on or not, 
and that the volition depends upon us. So with other 
activity which falls within volitional limits ; we are clearly 
conscious that we can begin, continue, or end it, and that 
without compulsion of any sort, internal or external. The 
conviction of freedom arises also, and especially, from the 
ethical sense of responsibility. Under normal circum- 
stances, and when undebauched by speculation, no one can 
help regarding himself and his neighbors as responsible 
for voluntary action ; and, under the same circumstances, 
no one can regard any one as responsible who, by internal 
or external necessity, is shut up to a single course of 
action. The great form of excuse for wrong-doing is, I 
could not help it. These two facts lead us to refer our 
acts to ourselves as their responsible, that is, as their free 
cause. 

The conception of freedom in spontaneous thought al- 
ways involves the thought of a possible alternative. This 
view has the advantage of being intelligible and valuable. 
Many attempts have been made to define freedom so as to 
include necessity. Thus, that is free which is not coerced 
or impelled from without ; or that is free which unfolds 
without hindrance its own nature. At the same time this 
freedom may be absolutely determined by some internal 
necessity. But when this inner necessity is extended to 
the entire activity, we have nothing of freedom left but 
the name ; and it would tend to clearness if this were 
dropped. 

This spontaneous conception of the will is not accepted 
by a large class of speculators. Some of these deny the 
existence of will altogether as a reality, and make willing 
only a peculiar phase of mechanical activity. Others admit 



224 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the reality of the will and the efficiency of volition, but 
claim that the will itself is determined. These admit that 
my volition determines within certain limits whether my 
activity shall begin, continue, or cease ; but they deny that 
the volition itself is free. Both views agree in denying 
freedom, but differ in the underlying psychology. The 
difference, however, is much less than appears. 

The first view conceives action as follows. All our 
ideas, especially when accompanied by feeling and desire, 
tend automatically to pass into action. In thinking, we 
notice a tendency to pronounce the words. In watching 
the movements of an athlete, we experience a tendency to 
imitate them. The desires show this tendency in a much 
higher degree. Here, then, is a basis of activity. When 
the idea or desire is single, it passes automatically into 
action. When the mental state is complex, then the con- 
stituent desires and motor impulses conflict with one an- 
other. This conflict appears in consciousness as reflection 
and deliberation. Finally, the strongest represses its com- 
petitors and passes into action. Such an act is called 
volitional. It is, however, purely mechanical ; and its 
volitional character is but the reflex in consciousness of 
the mechanical conflict of the active impulses, arising from 
the ideas and desires in question. A volitional activity is 
essentially a complex mechanical activity, whose factors 
largely elude our knowledge. And since we are rarely con- 
scious of all the impulses at work, we come to think that 
we determine our will ; or that whatever the motives may 
be which compete for our assent, we have the casting vote. 
In this way arises the illusion of the freedom of the will, 
or rather of freedom in willing. 

The second view differs from this only verbally ; for its 
philosophy of action is essentially the same. Desires and 
impulses are introduced as constitutional elements, and are 
supposed to conflict, especially in the form of motives. In 



WILL AND ACTION. 225 

this conflict the strongest always prevails, and its preva- 
lence is the volition. The difference is plainly verbal. If, 
in addition to the prevalence of the motive, there were 
needed a special act of volition for the realization of the 
motive, we should have all our work for nothing. The 
result would be an incongruous mixture of freedom and 
necessity. The two views, then, may be treated as one. 
Both alike reduce action to a series of occurrences within 
us, according to the laws of causation. 

This view is not founded on consciousness. The con- 
sciousness of freedom, of self-control, is admitted, but ex- 
plained as an illusion arising from our ignorance of the 
forces at work upon us and within us. This is aided by 
regarding this consciousness as negative, as the lack of con- 
sciousness of compulsion ; and then we are instructed that 
our unconsciousness of compulsion does not disprove its 
reality. It might be questioned whether our consciousness 
is thus purely negative ; but at any rate our unconscious- 
ness of compulsion does not prove that we are compelled. 
This extraordinary conclusion has not been unknown in 
the history of the debate. Nor is it at all clear how the 
consciousness of freedom could ever have arisen in this 
negative fashion. The conception of freedom is not the 
same as ignorance of causation ; and if we suppose the 
mind to think only under the law of causation without 
positive experience of freedom, there is no way of trans- 
forming simple ignorance of causation into the conception 
of freedom. And if there were, then whenever we are 
ignorant of causation we ought to affirm freedom, which 
is absurd. We are then shut up, first, to admitting a posi- 
tive consciousness of freedom, and, second, to declaring 
this consciousness to be delusive. 

Sundry other difficulties exist for this view. To begin 
with, it provides only for positive impulses, whereas nega- 
tive conceptions may decide volition. In particular, the 

15 



226 PSYCHOLOGY. 

conception that an object is unattainable paralyzes action, 
while the desire may be even intensified by this knowledge. 
Facts of this kind admit of no adjustment to the theory. In 
the next place, the theory assumes a commensurability of 
impulses which is in the highest degree doubtful. A physi- 
cal appetite, an emotional desire, an intellectual conception, 
a moral conviction, hardly seem to be commensurable ele- 
ments. But we pass over its psychological foundation 
concerning which many other scruples might be raised, and 
call attention to several embarrassing implications : — 

1. If the theory be true, action must follow immediately 
upon its antecedents. When the scales are loaded, there is 
no hesitation, no deliberation ; but the heavier weight be- 
gins at once to sink. When two or more mechanical forces 
act upon a body, the resultant is at once and irrevocably 
declared. If, now, volitional action is to be brought under 
such mechanical laws, there is likewise no room for hesita- 
tion, or deliberation, or comparison of consequences. As 
well might a mechanical resultant compare the component 
forces, inquire which was the strongest, and finally decide 
for it. Yet all determinists have allowed a power of think- 
ing twice, of reserving decision, of refraining from action. 
But if this be a real power, we have a power outside of 
motives and impulses, which is able to control both itself 
and them. If we say it controls them by bringing up some 
other motive, that only affects the manner of control and 
not the fact. A being which can control itself through 
motives must have control over the motives ; and thus the 
fact of self-determination reappears, though in a special 
form. But if this be denied, the appearance of deliberation, 
of comparison of motives, reasons, etc., must be explained. 
It cannot be explained by the motives in consciousness, for, 
by hypothesis, these, if left to themselves, would pass at 
once into volition and action. By hypothesis, also, it is 
not due to any self-control of the mind. We must, then, 



WILL AND ACTION. 227 

feign a series of impulses out of consciousness to account 
for it ; and these too must be such as to make it seem as 
if we ourselves were controlling in the matter. 

2. But this conception, if followed out, would lead to 
scepticism of reason itself. Reasoning similar to that em- 
ployed in discussing the materialistic theory of knowledge 
would show that no system of necessity can construct a 
theory of knowledge and of error which shall not vanish 
into hopeless scepticism. The attainment of truth implies 
the existence of a standard of truth in the mind, and the 
possibility of directing our rational activity accordingly. 
The one thing which the truth-seeker must be on his guard 
against is the tendency to conclude hastily. He must, then, 
test his facts, criticise his processes, repeat his arguments, 
tear asunder the misleading conjunctions of association, 
and reserve his assent until the crystalline and necessary 
conjunctions of reason are reached. Where this cannot be 
done, there is no proper rationality, but only a psychologi- 
cal succession of mental states. And this is the result of 
the theory in question. One conclusion is as necessary as 
another, and as good while it lasts. Conclusions are not 
drawn by force of logic, but mental states are called up 
and shifted by the mental mechanism. There is no longer 
any distinction between truth and error: and everything 
sinks to the mere level of psychological facts, which as 
such are neither true nor false, but simply real or unreal. 
However we work the theory, we shall find it impossible 
to establish any standard of distinction between truth and 
error, and equally impossible to use it if we had it. Free- 
dom is no less necessary to rational action than it is to 
moral action. Indeed, the purest illustration we have of 
self-determination is in the case of thinking. Wo direct 
and maintain attention, we criticise every step, and look 
before and after, until we reach the rational conclusion. 
And there is the advantage in considering the question in 



228 PSYCHOLOGY. 

this realm, that most of the confusion about motives is 
impossible here. 

3. The theory involves the denial of all personal respon- 
sibility. Manifold attempts have been made to escape this 
result ; but they belong, without exception, to the most ab- 
ject and ghastly parodies of reasoning. The most approved 
device is that which makes conduct depend on character ; 
but the speculator generally forgets to define character, 
and always forgets to inquire what character depends on. 
Sometimes it is claimed that our moral judgment of a 
person depends upon what he is, no matter how he be- 
came so ; but this overlooks the double standard of moral 
judgments mentioned in the last chapter. Imperfection 
is charged upon whatever falls below the ideal; but respon- 
sibility belongs only to the free. 

4. We have, then, a theory which cannot begin without 
disparaging the common consciousness of the race, and 
which is also highly unclear in its psychological basis. In 
the next place, it cannot go on without assuming a variety 
of impulses of which nothing is known except by hypothe- 
sis. Further, and finally, the theory is forced to break 
down reason itself, and to reject the universal sense of 
responsibility. Plainly, there ought to be very weighty 
reasons to warrant a theory like this. 

The denial of freedom rests entirely upon theoretical 
grounds. These are, first, the impossibility of comprehend- 
ing free action, and, second, the supposed demands of the 
law of causation. The first fact makes us unwilling to 
admit freedom ; the second seems to make it impossible. 

1. As cognitive beings, we have an undoubted interest in 
explaining all events according to some system of general 
laws. At the same time it must be remembered that ex- 
planation cannot extend to everything. It presupposes 
the existence of a set of facts and laws which furnish the 
conditions of explanation. These have to be taken for 



WILL AND ACTION. 229 

granted ; and a demand that they shall be explained by the 
processes of which they are the foundation is the mark of 
a mind not in full possession of itself. A mania for ex- 
plaining makes it impossible to understand the nature and 
conditions of explanation. Since, then, the very nature of 
explanation refers us to facts and processes outside of 
itself as its own foundation, we need not be concerned at 
finding in freedom a fact which admits of no deduction or 
comprehension, — a fact to be recognized and admitted, not 
deduced or comprehended. There is all the less reason 
for disturbance, when we see that this freedom is a neces- 
sary implication of that rational activity in whose interests 
explanation itself is undertaken. 

2. But the law of causation contradicts the notion of 
freedom ; and, as the former is a necessity of thought, the 
latter must be given up. To this it might be said that the 
contradiction is doubtful. The law of causation says sim- 
ply, For every event seek a cause. In this sense a free 
act has a cause as much as any other. Its cause is the free 
spirit. If we ask what caused it to cause, we are shut up 
to an infinite regress. The question, Why did the mind 
act thus ? is always ambiguous. It may mean, What were 
the reasons in the presence of which the mind acted ? and 
it may mean, What caused the mind to act thus ? The 
first question would be answered by recounting the reasons ; 
the second would be answered by the libertarian by deny- 
ing that anything caused the mind to cause. It acted out 
of itself, and that must be the end of the matter. 

It may be objected from the other side, that this does not 
meet the demands of causation. Freedom supposes a cause 
which, in given circumstances, may take either of two or 
more directions ; and hence the actual direction must be 
causeless. Here, also, there is a certain ambiguity, in that 
there may be reasons for the course taken in the presence 
of which the mind determined its action. The question 



230 PSYCHOLOGY. 

can be reduced to this : Does the law of causation demand 
that every cause must be uni-potential, or may there also 
be pluri-potential causes ? The former assumption implies 
that uniformity in causation is a necessity of thought ; and 
the latter implies that there may be causes which, within 
certain limits, can determine their own direction. The 
former supposition cannot be maintained ; and the latter 
cannot, from its very nature, be understood. The only 
sense in which the law of causation is an absolute law of 
thought is, that nothing can arise from nothing, or that 
nothing can ever make itself into something. It does not 
decide that something must act uniformly, or that some- 
thing can in no sense determine its own direction. Causa- 
tion, as uniformity of action, is a postulate of our cognitive 
activity, but not a necessary principle. The question of 
uniformity or non-uniformity in action is one which cannot 
be speculatively decided. We can comprehend the one 
just as little and just as much as we can comprehend the 
other. The insight we seem to possess into the meta- 
physical possibility or impossibility is purely fictitious. 

If, however, we insist on taking the law of causation 
absolutely, and referring every event to a determining an- 
tecedent, the law is seen to limit itself. Such a conception 
would lead to an infinite regress, in which the law of 
causation itself would be lost. To escape this every sys- 
tem of speculation has had to allow an uncaused being or 
series of beings, which simply are because they are. The 
law of causation has no application to them in their exist- 
ence. Further, it is necessary to admit within this series, 
either an absolute beginning of activity and movement, or 
an unbegun activity and movement. Of this also the law 
of causation could give no account. It, too, would be a 
fact admitting of no deduction, but only of recognition. If, 
however, the law of causation compels the admission at one 
point, there is no objection of principle to recognizing such 



WILL AND ACTION. 231 

facts anywhere in the world process, if experience seems to 
reveal them. The very utmost, then, that the speculative 
objections to freedom can lead to, would be a drawn battle ; 
and the practical postulates of life and conscience would 
turn the scale in favor of freedom. 

A series of minor objections exists, based throughout on 
misunderstanding. First, freedom is attributed to the will, 
which is then erected into an independent agent, and sep- 
arated from both intellect and conscience and character. 
Then it is easy to show that the action of the will must be 
left to chance or caprice, that such a will is a dangerous, 
rather than a desirable possession, that there is no secu- 
rity that it will not at any moment reverse the whole tenor 
of the past life, etc. This is only a bugbear of misunder- 
standing. If anything is free, it is the soul, and not the 
will ; for the will is only an abstraction from the volitional 
activity of the soul. And this free soul is also the knowing, 
prevising, ethical soul. It can, then, estimate motives and 
reasons ; it can foresee consequences ; it can compare its 
principles of action with the law of right. Hence, the soul 
does not act in the dark, but in the light. When it is ob- 
jected that motives have weight, it seems to be assumed 
that, if man be free, motives should have no weight ; 
whereas a free man who is also rational is just the one 
who will give every motive its proper weight. Nor does it 
follow, that what a free being can do, that he must do. He 
can be arbitrary and capricious ; but he need not be and 
ought not to be. He can be inconsistent, but he ought not 
to be unless the consistency is in evil. 

Nor do we get any relief from these things by invoking 
necessity. For in any case men are what they are ; and 
they are arbitrary and capricious. If we suppose that they 
are so by necessity, we are certainly no better cff than 
when we suppose that they have the power to do better. 
Again, good men often do fall into evil; and hence the 



232 PSYCHOLOGY. ' 

necessitarian must admit that necessity contains no assur- 
ance of consistency of character, unless we have an insight 
into the content or direction of that necessity. Apart from 
such insight, it is at least as assuring to hold that we can 
govern ourselves to some extent, and thus can maintain our 
loyalty to righteousness, as it is to hold that we are subject 
to some opaque necessity of whose content and direction 
we know nothing. 

In theology this debate has often taken on strange forms 
for dogmatic reasons. In particular a distinction has been 
made between freedom of choice and freedom of willing ; 
and determinism has been placed in the choice, while the 
will has been left free. Our choice is fatally bound by our 
nature, or by what we are; but we are free in execution. 
Hence the doctrine of moral inability and natural ability. 
In practical life, however, this doctrine seems to invert the 
difficulty. Freedom of choice does not seem to be so diffi- 
cult a conception ; the trouble lies entirely in realizing our 
choice in life. And for this the soul must be able to in- 
tensify its effort until it bears down all resistance. In our 
executive inability lies the weakness of life, rather than in 
a lack of power to choose the good. 

The outcome of this sketch of the argument is this : 
(1.) We find freedom supported by a somewhat positive 
consciousness. (2.) We find it also implied in the prin- 
ciples by which men and societies live. (3.) We find its 
denial leading to scepticism of reason itself. (4.) Opposed 
to these facts we find the necessitarian argument, leading 
at best to no more than a drawn battle. We may therefore 
decide in favor of freedom. We may not view it as abso- 
lutely proved ; yet it is certainly a necessary postulate of 
reason and conscience, and as such we hold it. 

Volitional activity may enter to some extent into all the 
mental functions ; and, on the other hand, some factors of 
the mental life are entirely withdrawn from volitional con- 



WILL AND ACTION. 233 

trol. Thus the essential nature of the susceptibilities and 
the constitutional activities is independent of volition. The 
laws of mental procedure and of mental change and combi- 
nation also admit of no volitional control. Such are the 
interactions of thought and feeling, the laws of formal 
thought, and the judgments of conscience. These are for- 
ever secure from volitional modification. These laws fur- 
nish a basis of uniformity of which the free soul may avail 
itself, and without which freedom itself becomes meaning- 
less. Of the feelings we have little or no direct control. 
We govern them by directing our attention either toward 
objects connected with feelings we desire to arouse, or to- 
ward objects connected with feelings incompatible with 
those we desire to repress. In the intellectual life self- 
control is chiefly manifested in the form of attention, and 
the guidance of our cognitive powers toward a desired end. 
Attention may be non-volitional ; but in all earnest effort 
it is volitional. An end is conceived, and our cognitive 
activities are governed with reference to it. So in all sci- 
entific investigation there must be most careful and per- 
sistent application of our energies and the most watchful 
supervision of the same. Whatever is valuable in knowl- 
edge is due to freedom. This of course does not mean 
that the mind can coerce its conclusions, but that it cannot 
reach trustworthy conclusions without strict self-control. 
The laws of thought do not of themselves secure obedience ; 
otherwise there would be no error. In addition to the laws 
there must be an enforcement of them by the mind upon 
itself. In memory volition appears in a voluntary use of 
the laws of reproduction. In the constructive imagination 
the mind freely combines given elements. In all constitu- 
tional forms of activity volition enters as eliciting, guid- 
ing, repressing, according to laws inherent in the nature 
of the soul itself. Desultory executive volitions need no 
mention. 



234 PSYCHOLOGY. 

We see, then, that our freedom is far from absolute. It 
is limited, on the one hand, by our mental and physical 
constitution ; and, on the other, by the intensity of the de- 
sires and impulses which it has to control. These might 
be so intensified as to execute themselves without permis- 
sion from the will, and in spite of it. Within these limits 
freedom has its realm ; and even these limits are not fixed. 
The outcome of volitional action is habit, fixed disposition, 
settled character. The soul may freely bind itself with 
chains which it can never undo. Herein lie the psycho- 
logical significance of probation and the tragic element of 
freedom. Freedom may choose the seed, but it can neither 
determine nor escape the harvest. 

This limitation of our freedom demands a word of final 
emphasis. There is an automatic as well as a voluntary 
element in human activity ; and it is as impossible to ex- 
clude the former as it is to deny the latter. Corresponding 
to the one-si dedness of the necessitarian who makes au- 
tomatism all, is the one-sidedness of the iibertarian who 
makes freedom all. Even the claim that motives are rea- 
sons, and not causal or dynamic, cannot be unconditionally 
allowed ; for while motives as conceptions are not dynamic, 
motives as springing from or expressing impulses, consti- 
tutional or otherwise, do exercise an influence upon volition, 
and may even defy our attempts to control them. There 
are fixed laws within, as well as without ; and our conquest 
of mental realms, like that of physical realms, depends 
upon obedience to laws which we find, and which we can 
neither found nor abrogate. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 235 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

In the actual mental life, all its factors exist in complex 
synthesis from the start. In our study of that life, we 
must consider its factors successively, and one by one. 
The discussion of consciousness is not postponed to this 
point because consciousness is a late development in men- 
tal experience, but because it can be better dealt with after 
some study of the general factors of the mental life. It is 
not the psychologist's affair to construct the mental life, 
but to understand it. 

Various definitions of consciousness have been given, but 
they all reduce to tautology, or else presuppose the thing 
defined. Thus Herbart defines consciousness as the sum 
of all the real or coexistent present representations ; but 
the phrase " real and present representations " means pre- 
cisely those of which we are conscious ; for thereby alone 
are they constituted real and present. Consciousness has 
been further defined as a differentiating activity ; but as 
differentiation in general does not imply consciousness, 
it can only be conscious differentiation which is con- 
sciousness. 

Again, there has been a very general tendency to iden- 
tify consciousness with knowing, so that to know and to 
be conscious are often used as identical. This is due partly 
to the looseness of language, and partly to the fact that 
there can be no knowing apart from consciousness, and no 
consciousness without some knowing. But this identifica- 
tion of the two has led to especial difficulty in determining 
the relation of consciousness to the other mental facts of 



236 PSYCHOLOGY. 

volition and sensibility ; and very often they have been 
allowed to exist on their own account, and we are supposed 
to become conscious of them upon occasion. Others have 
gone still further in this direction, and have separated 
knowing itself from consciousness. This tendency is still 
further strengthened by mistaking the classifications of 
psychology for absolute distinctions. Hence, because 
feeling and willing are treated apart from knowing, it is 
assumed that they may exist apart from knowing. Con- 
sciousness is even erected into a faculty distinct from the 
rest, and having the function of inspecting their products. 
It would seem, then, that we know by the faculty of know- 
ing, and become conscious of both knowing and the knowl- 
edge by the faculty of consciousness. In such views, 
consciousness appears as a kind of addition to mental 
states which might exist in their completeness apart from 
it. Those especially delight in this view who hold to latent 
mental modifications, unconscious cerebration, etc. ; and 
consciousness almost appears at times as a disturbing and 
distracting element, rather than as a necessary condition 
of all mental states. But in spite of manifold assurances, 
it is quite impossible to tell what is left when the element 
of consciousness is dropped out of a mental state. Still 
others have defined consciousness as the knowledge the 
soul has of its own acts and states ; but this view also 
limits consciousness to knowing, and supposes other men- 
tal states to exist as the object of this knowledge. In 
order to save the definition, we might point out that the 
soul's power to observe objects does not necessarily imply 
the power to observe its own operations ; and to this sec- 
ond power we might give the name of consciousness. But 
in that case we should arbitrarily limit consciousness to 
one phase of knowing, and on no better authority, appar- 
ently, than the etymology of the word. 

Led by these considerations, or rather warned by these 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 237 

failures, we define consciousness as the specific feature, or 
condition, of all mental states; not, indeed, as something 
apart from, or antecedent to, mental states, but as that 
element which constitutes them mental states. It is that 
element which makes an act of knowing knowing, an act 
of feeling feeling, and an act of willing willing. It is not 
an act of knowing, nor an act of feeling, nor an act of 
willing, but the condition of all alike ; or that factor with- 
out which they could not exist. Unconscious knowing and 
unconscious willing are phrases which defy all interpreta- 
tion. It is, indeed, possible that the soul may perform 
many unconscious functions, but they would have no men- 
tal character. 

Consciousness, then, is not a faculty in addition to other 
faculties, but an implication of the other faculties. It is 
not a light which reveals mental processes existing in 
themselves, but is rather an essential property of those 
processes. On this view, the field of consciousness is sim- 
ply that of immediate experience without admixture of 
inference. It does not extend beyond the mental states 
and activities themselves, and the presentations which they 
mediate. What all this may mean admits of no further 
definition ; it can only be experienced. The impossibility 
of deducing consciousness as the resultant of uncon- 
scious forces has already been dwelt upon. The fact ad- 
mits neither of deduction nor of resolution into anything 
else. 

Much of the uncertainty just dwelt upon rests upon the 
mistake referred to, of taking the classifications of psy- 
chology for absolute differences in the mental facts them- 
selves. In truth, there is no such thing as pure knowing 
without admixture of sensitive and volitional elements ; 
and just as little is there any pure feeling or willing apart 
from cognitive elements. The simplest mental fact is com- 
plex ; and the elements into which we break it up in our 



238 PSYCHOLOGY. 

analysis are only the different phases of the one indivisible 
conscious state. 

But though consciousness can be neither defined nor de- 
duced, its conditions may be studied. The general form 
under which consciousness exists is that of the antithesis 
of subject and object ; that is, the object of which we are 
conscious must be distinguished from self as its subject, 
and objectified to self either as its state or act, or as a 
quality of external things. When this primal distinction 
is sharply made, we have a clear consciousness ; when it is 
vaguely made, we have an indefinite consciousness ; and 
when it is altogether lacking, we have nothing that can be 
called consciousness at all. For to be conscious, we must 
be conscious of something ; and we are conscious of that 
something only as we distinguish it from self, and place it 
over against self as our object. 

This point has been much disputed, but mostly on parti- 
san grounds. It is plain that our personal experience can 
never justify the denial, as we can by no possibility have a 
conscious experience which is not known as our own. No 
more can any observation of others ever reveal the inner 
structure of their consciousness, as such structure is hidden 
to external observation. The question must be decided, 
then, on theoretical grounds. 

Because of the exigencies of the sensational philosophy, 
the claim has been made that a purely sensitive conscious- 
ness is possible, which contains no reference to either sub- 
ject or object, but is simply itself. These references come 
later as the result of associated experiences. Our experi- 
ence is said to fall into two groups, one of vivid, and one 
of faint experiences. The former comes from the object ; 
the latter, from the subject. ' But these two groups are 
only gradually formed and distinguished, through the coa- 
lescence of like experiences, and the separation of unlike. 
Up to this time there is neither subject nor object, but only 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 239 

particular feelings. Out of these, association builds up the 
conception of both subject and object. The claim is un- 
tenable, for the following reasons. 

Such units of conscious feeling could never constitute a 
unitary consciousness. If a, b, c, d, e represent the several 
conscious states, they fall entirely asunder so long as the 
conscious self is not added. The consciousness of a is not 
that of b. Moreover, the series being in time, it perishes 
as soon as it is born. In short, we have states of con- 
sciousness, but no consciousness of states ; and a proper 
consciousness is possible, not as a series of states of con- 
sciousness, but only as a consciousness of states. But in 
order to the latter, there must be an abiding subject of the 
series, and one which discriminates itself from the series. 
Only as the states are discriminated from self as their 
subject, and are united in the various rational relations, 
does any intelligible consciousness arise. The truth in 
the sensationalists' claim is, that these acts of discrimina- 
tion may be more or less definitely performed, and hence 
consciousness may be more or less distinct and compre- 
hensive ; but they are implicit in every act of conscious- 
ness. Where they are entirely lacking, there is nothing 
which can be called consciousness, but oniy a mechanical 
reflex activity. 

Consciousness admits of various degrees, because the 
function on which it depends may be more or less defi- 
nitely performed. The lowest range of consciousness of 
which anything is known is that which exists when drop- 
ping off to sleep, or that of objects which affect our senses 
when our attention is otherwise directed. In these cases 
consciousness approaches a vanishing point, and often 
reaches and passes it. The objects exist for us only as 
a vague objectivity without definite significance. They 
emerge from this state only by a voluntary or involuntary 
direction of our attention toward .them. If now we choose 



240 PSYCHOLOGY. 

to call this state unconscious, and reserve the name of 
consciousness only for clear or distinct consciousness, we 
should say that very many mental states exist below con- 
sciousness. This has often been done, and the theory 
maintained that we may have manifold sensations and 
feelings without being conscious of them. But this is 
simply the extravagance of confounding a vague and im- 
perfect consciousness with none ; the truth being, that we 
have vague and unobtrusive sensations without directing 
our attention to them. This lower limit of consciousness 
does not admit of being definitely fixed. 

Our attention may be directed to the different factors of 
consciousness, to the neglect of the others. Thus we may 
confine our attention to the object, or to the subject, or to 
the object in relation to the subject. This fact has given 
rise to the distinction of consciousness and self-conscious- 
ness, of perception and apperception. But this also is an 
extravagance. There is no consciousness, or perception, 
without some element of self-consciousness or apperception. 
When we perceive something, we at least know who it is 
that perceives ; and when we lose ourselves in an object, we 
always know who it is that is lost. The antithesis of sub- 
ject and object never vanishes, but one member is dwelt 
upon rather than the other. A great deal of what is called 
self-consciousness is simply a consideration of objects and 
aims in their relation to self. When we say that we not 
only know or feel, but we know that we know or feel, the 
truth is merely that we make the fact of knowing or feel- 
ing the object of our attention. 

Attention is a condition of rational consciousness. When 
the sensibility is affected without fixing our attention, only 
a vague and indefinite consciousness results. But the sig- 
nificance of attention is double. Attention may mean 
simply the direction of our activity toward a given object. 
In this sense it is a form of self-determination, and is a 






CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 241 

condition of mental action. But the significance of atten- 
tion for consciousness consists quite as much in the kind 
of activity as in its direction. Attention as a simple 
staring at our objects leads to nothing. To reach a clear 
rational consciousness, we must establish relations among 
our objects and assimilate them to one another ; and thus 
our attention leads to new knowledge, or to a clearer per- 
ception or comprehension of our objects. We can fix our 
attention continuously upon an object only on condition 
that we continuously find something new in it, either by 
making new distinctions or by establishing new relations. 
When this is not the case, we become mentally paralyzed by 
the fixed stare, and thought comes to a stand-still. Atten- 
tion, then, runs right into the rational, or relating, activity 
of the mind ; and this it is which has such high significance 
for consciousness. 

Consciousness depends on the distinction of subject and 
object ; but this distinction alone would give only a vague 
objectivity, without any rational content. Consciousness 
emerges from this confused state only as the mind estab- 
lishes rational relations among its objects. To see the 
significance of this relating activity for consciousness, we 
need only drop out the rational relations from our objects. 
With the vanishing of temporal distinctions all our objects 
flow together into a confused present. With the vanishing 
of space relations there is nothing but an indistinguish- 
able objectivity left. With the conception of causation all 
dependence vanishes ; and such consciousness as might 
remain would be as meaningless as a language composed 
of interjections. A rational consciousness is possible only 
through the relating activity of the mind, whereby it consti- 
tutes its objects in rational relations. If, then, we should 
allow the possibility of a simple sensitive consciousness as 
a consciousness of the first order, we should have to affirm 
a higher rational consciousness as a consciousness of the 

16 



242 PSYCHOLOGY. 

second order. The fact, however, is rather that conscious- 
ness admits of varying degrees of clearness according 
as the functions upon which it depends are more or less 
definitely performed. 

It is the range of this relating activity which determines 
the limits of consciousness. We can grasp a plurality of 
objects only on condition of being allowed to relate them, 
and thus to unite them. And here the categories which 
are norms of distinction are also principles of unification. 
Things distinguished in time, space, number, etc., are at 
the same time united by those relations. Number in par- 
ticular is the great unifier, whereby a plurality is made 
amenable to our intellect. The idle question has often 
been raised whether we can be conscious of more than one 
thing at a time. It is plain that, if we could not be, a 
rational life would be impossible. No relation can be 
established with only one object, and without relations 
there is no thought. Of course the question vanishes if 
time itself, instead of being an independent duration in 
which thought occurs, is really only the form of our 
experience. 

The claim that consciousness depends on the antithesis 
of subject and object has been variously misunderstood. 
In particular, it has been taken to mean that the subject 
and object are ontologically distinct. Hence it has been 
argued that idealism is certainly false, as that doctrine 
denies the object. Hamilton especially argued that con- 
sciousness embraces both subject and object, and hence 
that both are given as equally real. But this claim con- 
founds a mental function with an ontological distinction. 
The object of consciousness is never the outer world, for 
consciousness extends only to our own states and acts. 
It is always and only our representations of which we are 
conscious in dealing with the outer world. These may 
represent an outer world ; but in any case our conscious- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 243 

ness extends only to our thought of that world. We have 
the same form of objectivity in dreams, where there is no 
thought of an ontological otherness ; and yet the object in 
waking perception is not projected outward with more self- 
evidence than obtains in many dreams. The same error 
has been used to prove that the Infinite cannot be con- 
scious ; since to be conscious there must be an independent 
object, while the Infinite as one and only can have no 
object beyond himself. On the same ground self-conscious- 
ness has been declared a contradiction ; for if the self be 
the subject, it has no object ; and if it be the object, it has 
no subject. All of this quibbling disappears upon remem- 
bering that the distinction of subject and object represents 
primarily the form under which consciousness takes place, 
and not any ontological separation between them. 

It is a very general conviction that self-consciousness is 
a late development of the mental life, and many deductions 
thereof abound in the associational psychology. We are 
said to live a conscious mental life long before we live a 
self-conscious life ; and thus self-consciousness is explained 
as a late result of experience. Even the intuitional psy- 
chologists differ on this point, some claiming that we have 
immediate consciousness of self, and others that the self 
is known only by inference. Materialists and many sensa- 
tionalists claim that the self is nothing but a name for the 
sum of mental states. These cluster together and thus 
constitute the self. In these claims we have some extrava- 
gance, some ambiguity, and considerable nonsense. We 
deal with the last first, ^r 

The reality of the self has already been established in 
Chapter I., and we refer only briefly to the subject here. 
Let a, b, c, d, e, etc. be the mental states whose sum is to 
constitute the idea of self. For whom does this sum exist ? 
For a f or for b f If for a, or for any other member of the 
series, then that member is more than a mental state, for 



244 PSYCHOLOGY. 

it must be able to be conscious of itself and of all the 
others, and must be able to distinguish them from itself 
and from one another, and also to unite the others in its 
single thoughts of their sum. But if a, 5, c, etc. are 
simply mental states, they never become a sum, or even 
a series. Each remains an isolated unit of consciousness, 
and a rational consciousness never begins. The attempt 
to construe the self as merely a cluster of mental states 
breaks down before the fact that even a cluster cannot 
be known as a cluster except by some unit which compre- 
hends them all. 

Two elements are to be distinguished in self-conscious- 
ness, (1.) our thought, or conception, of ourselves, and 
(2.) our experience of our thoughts, etc. as our own. The 
former element is developed and variable; the latter is 
original and constant. The conceptions we form of our- 
selves are manifestly acquired like our conceptions of any 
other object ; and this conception, like all others, may be 
more or less accurate. 

With children, and with many besides, the body is iden- 
tified with the self. Our body enters into all our ex- 
periences, either as affected or at least as present. In 
particular, it is the seat of a great mass of feelings of pain 
and pleasure, and, with those who have no higher feel- 
ings, the body will not fail to be viewed as the self. But 
the facts of death and of the religious nature soon led 
the race to a different conception, according to which the 
soul is something distinct from the body and able to live 
apart from it ; and yet even here the attempt to picture 
this view always results in conceiving a physical form with 
the physical attributes of the actual body, though in a 
somewhat sublimated form. And after all the utterances 
of the philosophers, nothing is more common than for us 
to wonder what we are, whether a passing bubble on the 
ocean of existence or an abiding essence. These facts 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 245 

show clearly that our conception of self is a variable one, 
and that it is least of all an original and constant datum 
of consciousness. Even yet it is not complete, as appears 
from the oft-repeated question, What are we ? It not only 
does not yet appear what we shall be ; it does not even 
appear what we are. If complete self-knowledge were 
given in immediate consciousness, this could not be the 
case. In this sense, then, the idea and knowledge of self 
are developed, and the history of the idea can be given. 

But this conceptual self-knowledge is by no means iden- 
tical with self-consciousness ; indeed, we can conceive a 
mind to have the fullest conceptual knowledge of itself, 
and yet have no proper self-consciousness at all. It might 
have all the categories of the reason, and might know that 
every mental state must have a subject and that every 
thought must have a thinker, and still have no self-con- 
sciousness. Nor should we get on if we endowed this be- 
ing with perfect knowledge of all existence. In that case 
it would discover a great many minds, and itself among the 
rest. It would also discover one of these minds to be the 
same mind which was thinking of all these other minds ; 
but its knowledge would carry it no further. Its concep- 
tion of itself would be just as objective and indifferent as 
its conception of all others ; and there would be nothing 
in its experience to explain that peculiar intimacy and 
vividness of self-consciousness which makes each mind 
for itself, not merely a specimen of a class, but a special 
case which puts all other things and persons into absolute 
antithesis to itself. For every individual, the world falls 
into two members, himself and all other things and per- 
sons : and this antithesis admits of no inversion. We may 
think of others with thoughts and experiences like our 
own ; but these conceptions lack entirely the vividness and 
reality of our experience of ourselves. The personality 
of others we merely conceive ; our own personality we 



246 PSYCHOLOGY. 

experience. Our mind is not merely a mind; it is our 
mind. The simple categories of the intellect would affirm 
only a mind ; we pass from a mind to our mind, because 
we do not merely grasp ourselves in conception, but also 
realize ourselves in immediate experience. It is this self- 
experience which attends all our mental states which 
interprets to us what is meant by our ; and if it were lack- 
ing there would be no way of telling what is meant thereby. 
This self-experience is the original and irreducible factor 
of self-consciousness. It is in the life of feeling, desire, 
emotion, interest, that selfhood acquires any vividness and 
reality. 

No deduction of this self-experience is possible. It is 
something unique, and can be understood only in terms of 
itself. Some materialists have urged that self-conscious- 
ness is explained by the movement of the brain molecules 
in paths which return upon themselves. The source of 
this folly is evident. Self-consciousness may be called a 
reflection of consciousness upon itself, and hence a move- 
ment returning upon itself might, in extremely gross minds, 
pass as an explanation of self-consciousness. Scarcely bet- 
ter are the various philosophical accounts which teach that 
self-consciousness arises only through an outgoing activity 
of the self, which, meeting the non-self, is reflected back into 
the self again. This is entirely unintelligible except as a 
highly figurative way of describing self-consciousness, and, 
if allowed as a fact, we should not have self-consciousness, 
but simply an emitted and reflected activity. To call this 
self-consciousness is an abuse of language. 

Equally unsuccessful are the attempts to deduce the idea 
from the interaction of other ideas. Many striking things 
are said of " conception masses," which represent the self, 
and which, bj^ repelling or assimilating new experiences, 
produce all the phenomena of self-consciousness. Such 
utterances belong to the department of psychological my- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 247 

thology. The " conception masses," having by hypothesis 
no subject, could never attain to a rational consciousness 
of any sort. They but illustrate the too familiar fact that 
we easily mistake abstract fictions for things. Equally 
hopeless is the claim that we reach self-consciousness by 
inferences from our mental states. The difficulty is, that 
such inference must be either from our mental states, or 
from mental states not known to be ours. In the former 
case, there would be no need of inference, and in the latter 
case we should come to a knowledge only of a self and not 
of my self. Hence we hold that self-consciousness rests on 
an immediate experience of self. This self-experience is 
the raw material out of which our developed conceptions of 
self are wrought. Experience does not intensify it, but 
only furnishes us with clearer ideas whereby to interpret 
it. The small child, who has not the least idea of self and 
not-self as formal conceptions, has yet the liveliest experi- 
ence of itself in its feelings of pain and pleasure. We con- 
clude, then, that all consciousness of which anything can 
be said has in it this element of self-experience, and that 
this element is primal and undeducible. The self does 
not stand behind experience as its mysterious noumenal 
ground to be reached only by inference, but reveals itself 
as present in experience. We have neither an abstract 
consciousness of self, nor only a consciousness of mental 
states, but a consciousness of self as having states. 

This distinction of the experience of self from the con- 
ception of self enables us to adjust a dispute of long stand- 
ing in psychology. The question is raised whether we 
have direct consciousness of the ego, and both sides are 
taken. Against the affirmative, it is urged that our knowl- 
edge of the ego is purely a matter of inference from states 
of consciousness. What the ego is, is known by studying 
its phenomena, just as the nature of hydrogen is learned 
by studying its phenomena. It is further urged, that we 



248 PSYCHOLOGY. 

are not conscious that the ego is a substance at all ; as is 
shown by the possibility of materialism. This seems to 
make out a case for the negative ; but, on the other hand, it 
is urged that no consciousness exists without an implicit 
reference to self as its subject. We are not conscious of 
thoughts and feelings, but of our thoughts and feelings. 
It is, then, nothing strange that we succeed in deducing 
self-consciousness when we start with it. This seems to 
make out a case for the affirmative. That these two views 
do not apply to the same factor of self-consciousness is 
apparent. The first claim is valid for our conception of 
the nature of self ; the second is valid for our immediate 
experience of our thoughts and feelings as our own. 

Self-consciousness may remain on the lowest level of 
self-experience ; and it may advance from this to a dis- 
tinct conception of self, and to an affirmation of self as the 
controlling subject of experience. Only in that case would 
self-consciousness be perfect. This state is reached only 
as the mind comes into reflective self-possession and self- 
control. In childhood there is an abundance of self-experi- 
ence, but no reflective self-knowledge. The idea of self 
does not appear as a central idea in the mental life, and 
the mind is absorbed in its objects, or in its experiences 
of pleasure or pain. Even in our mature human life, self- 
consciousness often remains on the level of self-experience, 
without any distinct reflection upon self as the subject of 
our experience, and even without much reflection upon the 
nature of our activity in general. In this state of mind we 
often do and say things without any true sense of their 
significance ; and afterwards, upon reflection, we arc hardly 
able to conceive the deed or word as our own. In the 
delirium of passion this is very common ; and the man 
is said to forget himself, or to be beside himself, etc. If 
now we should decide to call only developed and perfect 
self-consciousness self-consciousness, it would be true that 






CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 249 

self -consciousness is a late development of the mental life, 
and that it may even fail altogether. But this would be 
the extravagance already referred to. The facts show 
simply, not that either element of subject or object may be 
absent from consciousness, but that the mind may direct 
its attention to either to the neglect of the other, or rather 
that consciousness may be focused upon either of its ele- 
ments, according to our interest at the time. It is possible 
that, in the case of the lower animals, self-consciousness 
may remain permanently on the level of simple self-experi- 
ence without further rationalization of that experience. 

The experience of self is primal. The conception of self 
is secondary. The latter is reached like all other concep- 
tions, and may be more or less adequate. Here is the 
place for the fine psychological observation, that children 
are slow in learning the use of the personal pronoun of the 
first person ; for though not clearly relevant, it is always 
charming. The bringing out of the idea of self into clear 
consciousness as the centre of the mental life is, indeed, a 
slow process. In childhood, this conception seems lacking. 
There is self-feeling or self-experience ; but the self has 
not been clearly set over against its objects and activities 
as their subject and controlling source. When this is 
done, we have the consciousness of freedom, a fact which 
explains the claim often made, that to be self-conscious is 
to be free. In such developed self-consciousness the soul 
is aware of its aims and ideals, and directs its activities 
accordingly. 

Developed self-consciousness is subject to various dis- 
turbances. In the delirium of fever or of passion, the 
mental states may break from control, and hinder the func- 
tion upon which clear self-consciousness depends. Again, 
the feeling connected with mental states varies, and espe- 
cially our interest in objects. In cases of mental disease, 
disturbances of feeling sometimes occur, which make the 



250 PSYCHOLOGY. 

person seem strange to himself. Profound apathy, also, 
can arise, which causes everything to seem foreign to the 
mind, as a paralyzed limb to the body. This does not 
imply an absolute ignorance of self as the subject of the 
experience, but only a profound indifference, in which all 
self-interest has vanished. And as it is the life of feeling 
which gives any vividness to selfhood, disturbance of the 
former must affect the latter. 

Herewith we close our study of the factors of the mental 
life. The aim has not been to exhibit these factors in 
combination, but to show the factors themselves. Con- 
cerning them a double error is possible. On the one hand, 
we have an attempt to reduce these factors to some com- 
mon form ; and on the other, we have a tendency to regard 
them as distinct entities. The former appears in the sen- 
sationalists' deductions, and the latter in the traditional 
doctrine of the faculties. Both errors are to be guarded 
against. The transformations of sensationalism are purely 
verbal ; and we have to assume a complex mental nature 
to account for the complex mental life. But we are not to 
suppose that this complex nature is made out of a bundle 
of independent faculties. The faculties are always and 
only abstractions from the many-sided mental life. This 
life is the reality. Here and here only do the reason, the 
will, the intellect, the understanding, the sensibility, have 
their existence ; and all alike represent only phases of this 
basal life. 



PART II. 



THE FACTORS IN COMBINATION. 



PART II. 

THE FACTORS IN COMBINATION. 



CHAPTER I. 
PEECEPTION. 

We have studied thus far the elementary factors and 
processes of the mental life without any reference to their 
products and combinations. These we have now to con- 
sider ; and first we deal with perception. This has often 
been regarded as a simple and unanalyzable form of mental 
activity ; whereas it is really a process into which all forms 
of mental activity enter to a greater or less degree. Will 
enters in the form of attention. Thought contributes its 
categories, and the sensibility furnishes the raw material. 
Even reproduction plays an important part, as we shall see. 
Essentially, perception is a process of rationalizing sensa- 
tion, or an application of the categories to the raw material 
of sensation. In this way the mind reaches the world of 
things. This is the thesis to be established. 

When two persons converse, no thoughts leave the mind 
of the one and enter bodily into the mind of the other. 
The nervous action and vibrating waves of air which inter- 
vene contain no thought. How, then, is an exchange of 
thought possible ? 

All thought of transmission except in a figurative sense 
is impossible. The fact is this. By an entirely mysterious 
world-order the speaker is enabled to produce a series of 
sensations in the hearer which are totally unlike thought, 



254 PSYCHOLOGY. 

but which by virtue of the same mysterious world-order 
act as a series of incitements upon the hearer, so that he 
constructs in his own consciousness the corresponding 
thought. The act of the speaker is in availing himself of 
the proper incitements, that of the hearer is primarily the 
reaction of the soul against the incitement. Hence, to per- 
ceive another's thought we must construct it in ourselves ; 
and to inform another of our thought is not to pass some- 
thing over to him, but to incite him to a form of mental 
action like our own. All communication of finite minds is 
of this sort. Instruction and education of every kind con- 
sist, not in pouring ready-made knowledge into the mind, 
but in directing its activity so that it shall develop knowl- 
edge within itself. The wisest teacher can do no more 
than avail himself of the system of incitements which the 
world-order provides, and then trust to the student's mind 
to react against incitement with growing thought and in- 
sight. Thoughts are not things which can be handed along 
ready made, they are rather mental functions ; the only 
way in which a thought can be put into a mind is to stimu- 
late it to perform the corresponding function. 

What is thus true of the perception of another's thought 
is equally true of our perception of the outer world in gen- 
eral. To perceive the universe we must construct it in 
thought ; and our knowledge of the universe is but an un- 
folding of the mind's inner nature, a reaction of the mind 
against external action. The mere existence of a thing is 
no ground for our perception of it on any theory ; it must 
in some way act upon us. If we might personify the uni- 
verse, and attribute to it a desire to pass into human knowl- 
edge or to appear in the human mind, we should say that 
it must proceed as a human teacher does. The latter avails 
himself of a system of excitations whereby he incites the 
mind of the student to unfold itself and develop knowledge 
within itself. All the while he is putting nothing in, but 



PERCEPTION. 255 

is leading the mind out into possession of itself. In the 
same way must the universe proceed. It can put nothing 
into the mind except by inciting the mind to special forms 
of activity, which in turn are only expressions of the mind's 
own nature. The grounds of this conclusion lie in the no- 
tion of interaction and in the physiological facts concerning 
perception. We consider them in order. 

For us the soul is a real agent, and all perception rests 
upon an interaction between the soul and the world of 
things. But in all interaction, when one thing acts upon 
another it contributes nothing, but merely furnishes the 
conditions of the other's action or manifestation. Least of 
all can the cause of an effect be laid in only one of the 
things. Thus, a ray of light falls upon ice, upon a mixture 
of hydrogen and chlorine, and upon the eye. In the first 
case melting results ; in the second, explosion ; and in the 
third, a sensation. Here the antecedent is the same in all 
the cases ; the difference of the consequents must be at- 
tributed to the nature of the things acted upon ; and the 
effect in each case can be viewed only as a manifestation of 
the peculiar nature of those things, and not as something 
carried into them. What is thus true of all interaction is 
true of that between the soul and the world of things. The 
reaction of the soul in such cases represents nothing poured 
into it from without, but is rather an expression of what 
the soul is. But perception depends upon such an inter- 
action, and hence we cannot find the sufficient ground of 
our knowledge in the object, as is often done, but must 
rather hold that the resulting knowledge is an expression 
of the nature of the mind itself. The external action, here 
as elsewhere, only furnishes the incitement which leads to 
a peculiar reaction on the part of the soul in which the 
soul manifests itself. 

The physiological facts connected with perception lead 
to the same conclusion. Things have often been spoken of 



256 PSYCHOLOGY. 

as stamping, impressing, photographing, themselves upon 
the mind ; and these figures of speech have been taken for 
explanations. But to see their purely verbal character we 
need only ask (1.) where these stamps, etc. are; (2.) where 
the extended mind is that receives them; and (3.) how 
these pictures on the mind become thoughts in the mind. 
If we should allow the grotesque fancy that things really 
stamp themselves upon the mind as an extended substance, 
the perceptive act would be as far from being explained 
as ever. We should have outlines on the mind ; but no 
thoughts in the mind ; these would be reached only as the 
mind, by an inner act, changed the stamp, or image, into 
conception. The strength of such figures of speech lies in 
the fact that we regard the knowing mind as something 
objective to ourselves. Accordingly, when we figure the 
mind as a tablet with pictures on it, we also think of our- 
selves as looking at the picture ; and then we mistake our 
imagined perception of the picture for its perception by the 
impressed mind. But all these whims disappear when we 
remember the conditions of perception. On the most real- 
istic theory, nervous action is the medium of all our knowl- 
edge of the outer world ; and this contains neither thoughts 
nor pictures. It is totally unlike the world of things, on 
the one hand, and the world of thoughts, on the other. No 
reflection upon it will claw out of it either the external 
thing or the internal thought. A printed page contains no 
thoughts ; these arise only as some mind appears which 
can read the page back into its significance. Likewise 
nervous action contains no knowledge ; this can arise only 
as this action is upon some mind which can read back the 
nervous sign into its objective significance. But to do this 
the mind must have the principle of interpretation in itself. 
It has no standard or pattern by which to go, for the ner- 
vous action is all the outer world contributes, and this the 
mind has to read back into a world of things. But in so 



PERCEPTION. 257 

doing, it is only reacting against external stimulus and 
unfolding its own nature. Our world vision is primarily a 
product of the mind under external incitement. Whether 
it truly represents the outer fact is a question for separate 
discussion ; but in any case our knowledge, such as it is, is 
gained in this way. It is not a passive importation into 
the mind, but is developed by the mind within itself. 

Psychologists of the common-sense school have sought 
to evade this conclusion by speaking of an immediate 
knowledge, or a direct gaze on reality. Supposing the fact 
to exist, the question still remains, How is this immediate 
knowledge possible ? The things may be there just as we 
conceive them ; but their existence does not explain our 
perception. Things, too, do not throw off images or phan- 
toms of themselves, as the scholastics thought, which enter 
into the mind and mediate knowledge. The impressions 
on the retina or on the surface of the body, likewise, do not 
explain the fact. The only answer is that which we have 
given. Things act upon the mind, and the mind reacts by 
constructing in itself the thought of an object, and affirm- 
ing the object as a reality ; and this constitutes our knowl- 
edge of the thing. Mediate knowledge in sense perception 
is that gained by inference, as in the acquired perceptions ; 
and immediate knowledge can only mean such knowledge 
as results directly from the interaction of the mind with 
the object. But this implies no passive reception of ready- 
made knowledge ; but only a spontaneous development of 
knowledge by the mind under the proper conditions. In- 
deed, the psychologists of this school have formed their 
theory less from a study of the facts than from a pre- 
determination to avoid anything which might lend aid and 
comfort to idealism. This is especially the case with 
Hamilton's theory of immediate perception. In his desire 
to have no go-betweens in perception, he was forced to 
maintain that every sensation is really felt where it seems 

17 



258 PSYCHOLOGY. 

to be, and hence that the mind fills out the entire body. 
Likewise he had to affirm that the object in vision is not 
the thing, but the rays of light, and even the object itself 
had, at last, to be brought bodily into consciousness. Thus 
he reached the absurdity that the true object in perception 
is something of which we are totally unconscious. 

This, then, is the way in which our world vision is built 
up. Sensations are produced in us, and associate accord- 
ing to certain laws. The mind next reacts upon these by 
classifying and distinguishing them, and finally objectifies 
them under the forms of space and time, of cause and 
effect, and of substance and attribute. Our objectified 
representations constitute for us the external world. This 
does not forbid that the world may be as real as common 
sense assumes ; it only points out that to perceive the 
outer world we must think it, or construct it in thought. 
The mind can never grasp the object other than through 
the conception ; and the object exists for the mind only 
through the conception. Hence our knowledge of the 
outer world arises only as we form certain conceptions and 
objectify their contents in independent existence. 

Concerning the reality of the knowledge thus gained, we 
here say nothing. We are considering perception as a psy- 
chological process, and leave the inquiry into the validity 
of its results to the theory of knowledge. We point out, 
however, that if our objective knowledge is valid, we must 
assume that the laws of thought are parallel to those of 
things. Since the thing is known only through our con- 
ception, and since in forming this conception the mind 
follows strictly its own laws, it follows that the validity of 
the conception implies that the laws of thought and those 
of being are parallel. We must further assume that there 
is a fixed relation between the antecedents of sensation and 
the nature of things, on the one hand, and between those 
antecedents and the thought activity on the other. That 



PERCEPTION. 259 

is, if knowledge be of the fact, then the activity which 
produces sensations must be adjusted to the fact, and must 
arouse the mind to an activity which shall reproduce the 
fact in thought. Without this assumption of an exact 
adjustment of heterogeneous elements, there can be no 
trust in perception. 

But how in that case can error occur ? Manifestly we 
cannot place any trust in perception without assuming a 
fixed order of interaction between the subject and object ; 
but if there be such an order, how can error arise ? This 
question can be answered only by assuming that the fixed 
order extends only to the elements of the interaction ; and 
that these elements may be united either by association or 
by arbitrariness in ways which are foreign to the truth of 
things. 

Thus far we have only sought to determine our general 
conception of the perceptive process, without describing it 
in detail. It is conceivable that all perception should be 
immediate, so that the rational interpretation of our sen- 
sations should be instantaneous, and independent of in- 
ference and experience. The relation between the object 
and the mind might be such that we should at once per- 
ceive it as it is and where it is. But this is not the case. 
We learn to perceive. The interpretation of our sense 
experience into a world of things of fixed nature and in 
definite relations is a gradual process ; and very much of 
it rests upon an automatic interpretation of sense signs 
which we have learned. A history, then, of the perceptive 
process is conceivably possible ; but unfortunately it is 
hard to write. We learn to perceive long before we reflect 
upon the process ; and by the time reflection begins, the 
process has become so familiar that its steps are no longer 
visible. The factors which enter into it can be discovered 
by analysis of the product ; but the genetic stages are not 
manifest. The details of how we come to refer our sensa- 



260 PSYCHOLOGY. 

tions to definite objects in space, either as their qualities or 
as caused by them, must, then, be matters mainly of sur- 
mise and guesswork. In our mature life all our sensa- 
tional experiences are immediately referred to things in 
time and space, and this fact leads us to fancy that it 
always has been so, and it also makes it difficult to assign 
to the several senses their significance for the process. 

The perception of things and that of space relations 
grow together. Things first become things for the mind 
when individuated in space ; and, on the other hand, as 
soon as things are distinguished in space relations they 
appear as things. We have already pointed out that noi 
all sensations are equally efficient in arousing the mind 
to a spatial projection of its objects ; but it is not easy to 
decide the efficiency of the several senses. Tastes, sounds, 
and odors, in themselves, locate their objects very faintly, if 
at all. There is little difficulty in abstracting from space 
relations in their case, and confining ourselves to their 
purely qualitative significance. If they have any power in 
themselves to cause a localization, it seems to be only a 
reference to the part of the organism which is affected. 

Sight, touch, and the muscular sensations attending move- 
ment, are much more effective ; though it is impossible to 
tell to what extent they affect one another. What we need 
to know is whether sight alone, or touch alone, or muscular 
sensations alone, would give us any developed conception 
of space. It seems that a staring eye which could not move 
would give us little or no knowledge of space relations ; 
and the other senses without the aid of the eye would never 
enable us to grasp our objects in a common space with any- 
thing like the clearness of actual experience. Indeed, we 
find it impossible to grasp the space relations of a mani- 
fold in a common intuition, unless it be presented in vision. 
We lose the beginning before we come to the end. Hence 
it is often claimed that with the blind an involved set of 



PERCEPTION. 261 

temporal conceptions takes the place of space relations ; 
but this claim is disproved by the existence of blind ge- 
ometricians. They must possess the elements of the space 
intuition; but the total image of space is probably very 
imperfect. 

In actual experience, our various external senses work 
together, and may be aided by changes in the brain itself 
due to our various movements. One general assumption, 
however, must be made ; namely, that sensations cannot 
be interpreted into any and every space form, but that there 
is a fixed relation between a given form of sensation and 
its spatial interpretation. This is simply an application of 
the notion of law or uniformity to the process, without 
which there would be no fixed connection between any 
object and our perception of it. What at one time appears 
as round might at another appear as square, etc. 

Various attempts have been made to adjust the signifi- 
cance of the several senses for the spatial localization of 
our objects, but with no very great success. The common- 
sense philosophers take the fact for granted, without asking 
how. A wide-spread view is that the elements of space are 
first learned from touch and movement, and that these are 
extended and completed by connection with the eye. Others, 
again, seek to vindicate an original localizing power for the 
eye itself. Still others think that all our senses may have 
such a power in some degree. For the perception of the 
extension of our body a doctrine of local signs has been 
proposed, according to which every sensation from any 
part has a local coloring, whereby it is distinguished from 
all the rest, and may be located. But the doctrine is 
plainly of no use until the perception of extension has 
taken place. Until then the local signs are simply quali- 
tatively distinct sensations, without any hint of their spa- 
tial origin. We are not anxious to decide among these 
various theories. The fact is, that the localization did not 



262 PSYCHOLOGY. 

take place instantaneously with the first sense experience, 
and that it takes place with much greater rapidity and 
accuracy through some of the senses than through others. 
But it could not take place at all, and our space experi- 
ence in general would be impossible, if certain forms of 
sensation were not attended with fixed elements of spatial 
construction. 

The strict solution of this question of localizing power in 
the different senses is not to be expected. Before observa- 
tion begins, the localization has taken place ; and either 
from association or from original power the objects of all 
the senses have received a local reference. Thereafter it 
is impossible to isolate any sense so as to get its unalloyed 
product. Nor can much weight be laid upon the pathologi- 
cal observations upon persons who were born blind and 
received their sight in later years. In such cases it would 
be hard to prove that the eye itself is in an optically per- 
fect state ; indeed, the probability would be for the negative. 
But admitting the fact, the only conclusion would be that 
the eye is not able at once and finally to locate its objects 
apart from all previous experience. It would by no means 
prove that the eye, when exposed to such changes as motion 
would produce, would not finally excite the mind to a de- 
veloped and complete image of objects in their space rela- 
tions. If we could have a human being made to order, and 
were permitted to furnish him successively with the several 
senses, we should get on with the problem ; but this can 
hardly be called a probable contingency. 

Perception is not complete until its objects are assimi- 
lated and classified. If the mind simply projected its ob- 
jects under the general categories without any further 
classification, thought would still be in its rudimentary 
form. We should have objects in general, but nothing 
defined and specific. Our objects pass from this vague 
generality to definite content only through classification. 



PERCEPTION. 263 

We cognize the thing by recognizing it, that is, by referring 
it to a known class. If an object is presented to us, our 
first effort is to tell what it is ; and if we can refer it to 
some class, we feel that our knowledge is increased. When 
this cannot be done, the thing remains for us an indefinite 
object, under some one of the categories. To see the sig- 
nificance of this classificatory element, we need only remem- 
ber that all the terms of a language, except the interjections, 
are general terms. Hence, to name anything, or to apply 
any term whatever to it, is an act of classification. The 
completed perceptive process, then, involves classification 
as one of its essential factors. 

The total result of the perceptive process is, that the 
mind forms a conception of a manifold of objects in space 
relations, and having various sense qualities ; and thereafter 
the object of perception is not the thing as it appears, but 
the thing as it exists for thought. Thenceforth there is a 
distinction between the appearance and the thing signified. 
The appearance of any object varies with our distance from 
it, and changes constantly as we approach or leave it. The 
mind, however, passes spontaneously to the conception of 
the thing as existing in a self -identity in space, and never 
dreams of confounding the changing appearance with the 
constant thing. From this time on, the appearance is con- 
nected with the thing as its symbol, and the mind passes, 
not by inference, but by association, from the symbol to the 
thing. Thus in painting we seem to see the thing, and in 
speech we seem to hear the meaning ; whereas the mean- 
ing in both cases is something added by the mind through 
an automatic connection of the sign with the thing signi- 
fied. If we should allow the mind to add nothing, and 
should limit it strictly to what the senses give, we should 
have neither identity nor constancy in our objects, as the 
sense appearance is perpetually shifting. 

The clearness with which our objects stand out before 






264 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the mind in perception varies with the distinctness of the 
sensations produced in us ; and we learn by experience 
that this distinctness is itself a function of the size and 
distance of the objects. It is this general fact which gives 
rise to the so-called acquired perceptions. Perceptions of 
size and distance are not immediately given in sensation, 
but are reached, either automatically through association, 
or inferentially through judgment. Hence they are said to 
be acquired. The simple fact is, that we learn by experi- 
ence to estimate the spatial significance of many forms of 
sensation. 

At this point, also, emerges the possibility of sense illu- 
sions. The senses themselves, as giving us only affec- 
tions of self, can never deceive us. Such affections are 
neither true nor false, but simple facts of consciousness. 
Delusion first becomes possible when we refer the affection 
to its causes, or when we seek to interpret its objective 
significance. We first find in experience a given sensation 
referred to a certain objective ground, and connected with 
others as possible. When this order is once established, 
any factor of it is sure to suggest all the rest. Hence, when 
any sensation which we have been accustomed to associate 
with a given thing is produced, we always perceive the thing 
which in our normal experience goes with that sensation. 
But the sensation may be produced by disease or imagina- 
tion, without the customary external stimulus. In all such 
cases we have sense illusions, and seem to see something 
where there is nothing to see. Delusions of this kind are 
impossible until sense experience has acquired some con- 
sistency and fixedness ; and, on the other hand, experience 
could never acquire any fixedness if cases of this kind 
were frequent. The more common cases of sense illusion 
are those connected with our perception of size and dis- 
tance. In experience our perception of size and distance 
is connected with a peculiar quality of the visual appear- 



PERCEPTION. 265 

ance, and hence whatever affects the latter affects the 
former. 

It is impossible, however, entirely to absolve the senses ; 
for though in the strict sense they do not deceive us, they 
are well adapted to deceive us. That is, the appearance is 
presented in such a way that illusion is almost unavoidable. 
If we accept the current doctrine of the subjectivity of 
sense qualities, our entire sense experience is a continu- 
ous and gigantic illusion. Minor illusions are found in the 
distortions of perspective, the vision of complementary col- 
ors, etc. The general untrustworthiness of the senses, 
within certain limits, is an axiom in physics. Here the 
first aim is to reach some objective standard which shall 
free us from the uncertainty of subjective estimates. 

In speaking of association, we said that there was a time 
when the representations of the different senses had no 
connection. There is nothing in the vision of color to 
suggest any of the sensations of touch, odor, etc. Their 
actual union is brought about by experience, and its 
method is highly obscure. It is conceivable that the per- 
cepts of the different senses should never have been united 
into a common object with various sense qualities; and 
it is not easy to tell how the composition is effected. But 
after it has been brought about, and after the eye has been 
taught, the eye becomes the chief organ of knowledge. 
Thus the object of vision becomes, not what the eye sees, 
but what the mind sees or the eye suggests. The eye can 
really see only different colors and outlines ; but we pass 
so immediately from these to what they suggest, that we 
seem to see the thing signified. In actual perception, what 
the eye gives is as different from what the mind sees as 
it is in painting or drawing. This general fact, which 
was first brought out into clearness by Berkeley, in his 
"New Theory of Vision," helps us to explain many prob- 
lems which otherwise would remain great puzzles. 



266 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The first of these is the upright perception of objects. 
It is well known that the rays of light must form an in- 
verted picture on the retina, and hence it has been con- 
cluded that we ought to see all objects upside down. But 
as we do not thus see them, the fact of upright vision be- 
comes a problem. It has been suggested, (1.) that the 
mind follows the rays outside of the eye beyond their 
crossing point, thus righting up the object, and (2.) that, 
because everything is inverted in the picture, we do not see 
anything so inverted. But apart from the difficulty that 
the mind knows nothing of rays of light, etc., all this rests 
on the assumption that the mind looks at the picture on 
the retina, which is a pure whim. There is in such notions 
so coarse an identification of the soul with the body, that 
it is strange, as Lotze has suggested, that no one has 
thought of turning the soul end for end, thus by a double 
inversion restoring the object to correct position. The fact 
is, that the object is not perceived by the eye at all ; but, 
from our total experience of the several senses, the mind 
constructs an object in space with various properties and 
relations, and certain visual sensations come to stand as a 
sign of this object. This object is what the mind sees, not 
the visual percept. Berkeley himself contended that the 
tactual percept is the real object in perception, and that 
the visual sensation is only the sign of the same. The 
truth is, that the mental object is neither the visual nor 
the tactual percept, but the conception which the mind has 
built out of its past experience, and of which either may 
serve as the sign. 

A second series of problems concerns our estimate of 
distance from vision. Here, too, the geometers appeared 
with the doctrine of visual angles formed by rays of light, 
and thought thus to explain the problem. But the same 
difficulty appears. The mind knows nothing directly of 
rays of light and visual angles ; and it is absurd to suppose 



PERCEPTION. 267 

the mind to infer distance from data of which it knows 
nothing. But this also admits of easy explanation. In 
common experience, dimness or confusion of visual sen- 
sations represents distance. We learn this by experience 
alone ; but when learned, such dimness becomes a sign and 
measure of distance. We find, the size of the object being 
fixed, that clearness of the visual perception varies directly 
with the distance ; and we further find, the distance being 
fixed, that the clearness varies with the size of the object. 
Hence, the same object often looks nearer, or larger, at 
one time than another. This is especially the case with 
the moon, and the fact was long a standing puzzle with 
the geometers. The reason is, that the moon, near the 
horizon, owing to the denser medium, seems dimmer than 
when overhead, and hence seems to be farther away, and 
hence seems bigger. In this case the effect of association 
is such as apparently to modify the visual perception. In 
some cases, association even produces outright the visual 
perception; for example, in speaking or reading, missing 
words or sounds are often supplied without any sense of 
their absence. That is, they are apparently heard or seen, 
because we know from experience what to expect. 

Because of the constructive activity in perception, many 
have called it a process of inference or judgment. But it 
is plainly not a process of conscious inference, and so they 
have called it unconscious inference. The soul uncon- 
sciously infers from its sense data the existence of those 
objects which correspond to them in its normal experience. 
It is plain that there might be an inferential process based 
on sensations, but it is equally plain that, in general, there 
is none. Unconscious inference is a phrase in which the 
adjective devours the noun, and the noun annihilates the 
adjective. Nor do we need any such contradictory notions. 
The primal activity in perception comes under the head of 
interaction, according to a law fixed in the nature of the 



268 PSYCHOLOGY. 

interacting agents ; and the facts with which we have just 
been dealing come under the well-known laws of associa- 
tion or suggestion. There is simply an automatic passage 
from sensations to conceptions which have been connected 
with them in past experience. 

The objective perception may be the affection of the 
particular sense, and it may be what the mind perceives 
through that affection. In general, it is the latter. The 
object is not what the eye sees, but what the mind sees. 
This object, however, is presented to the mind by its repro- 
ductive activity. Just as the meaning of spoken words is 
not heard by the ear, but by the mind, and just as this 
meaning is evoked by the spoken word only by the laws of 
association, so the object before the mind is not perceived 
by any or all the senses, but by the mind only, and so also 
this object is brought before the mind upon occasion of the 
sense experience only by the laws of association. It fol- 
lows, that perception is no simple process, but a highly 
complex one, in which the representative faculties are more 
active than the presentative. In any developed mental life, 
the past is more active than the present, even in our appar- 
ently immediate perceptions. The significance of classifi- 
cation has been already referred to. 

In leaving this subject, reference may be made to a set 
of cases in which the constructive action of the mind in 
perception is very apparent. These are the cases of the 
deaf and dumb. Here the normal incitements to mental 
action are lacking ; but others have been devised, whereby 
the mind is put in possession of itself and of the outer 
world. The most notable case is that of Laura Bridgman. 
With the blind, also, touch almost takes on the character 
of a new sense through the growing fineness of its dis- 
criminations. In all of these cases the mind remedies the 
defects of its physical instrument by adopting new sys- 
tems of signs, or by improving the imperfect ones in its 
possession. 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 269 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 

In a previous chapter, we have studied the mechanism of 
reproduction, but not its special forms and its significance 
for knowledge. It has been the custom in English works 
on psychology to distinguish presentative from representa- 
tive knowledge. In the former, the object is directly pre- 
sented to us, as in perception. In the latter, the object is 
recalled in memory, or created in fancy or imagination. 
In this view, moreover, presentation is made to cover the 
entire process of perception, so that representation has no 
part in it. Representation, on the other hand, is recog- 
nized only where the senses are inactive, as in memory or 
imagination. 

It is plain from the previous chapter that we cannot 
accept this view. We have seen perception to be a com- 
plex process, involving both presentation and representa- 
tion. Indeed, we have seen that the reproduced elements 
of knowledge are far more prominent even in an act of 
perception than the elements directly given in the sensa- 
tion. In all mature perception the mental object is not 
given in the sense, but is suggested by it through the force 
of association. So in the use of spoken or written lan- 
guage ; the ear hears no meaning, and the eye sees none. 
It is the principle of association which connects the two. 
In spoken language this fact often hides from us the im- 
perfections of utterance ; we know what to expect, and 
we hear accordingly. In written language the same thing 
appears. Unless we distinctly concentrate our attention 
upon the page, we fail to notice the errors of print or spell- 



270 PSYCHOLOGY. 

ing, etc. ; because, having a conception of what the sentence 
should be, we seem often to see the very corrections which 
we unconsciously make. Another illustration of the same 
fact is the familiar experience of seeing words on the page 
which are not there. In this case some letter or letters 
catch our eye ; and the mind fills out the allied word, and 
projects it so vividly upon the page that we are sure we 
see it until we look for it, and then it disappears. Thus 
we see that the presentative and representative processes 
go on together, and both alike enter into all completed acts 
of knowledge. 

But while all mature and completed perception involves 
representative activity, there are many forms of represen- 
tation which involve no present perception. Such are 
memory, revery, imagination, etc. ; and these constitute 
a special phase of mental action. The mind is able to 
present to itself past, or absent, or non-existent objects 
and events ; and this is representation. This includes im- 
agination and fancy, because all the elements with which 
they deal have been given in experience. We can produce 
new combinations in imagination, but nothing more. By 
no effort can we tell what a new sense would be ; and 
all our dreams of another life consist in assimilating it 
to this. 

Past events may be reproduced as they were, and may 
be temporally located in our past experience. This form 
of reproduction we call memory or recollection. "When 
the event is located in the future, we have expectation. 
Again, elements of experience may be reproduced without 
any regard to their original order, and without any refer- 
ence to our personal experience. When this activity is 
automatic and aimless, it may be called fantasy. Finally, 
elements of experience may be purposely combined into new 
forms not hitherto experienced ; or the past and absent 
may be called up, not for memory, but for contemplation. 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 271 

This form of reproduction may be called imagination. In 
fact, however, there is no consistent terminology for the sev- 
eral phases of the representative activity. Memory, recol- 
lection, reminiscence, fancy, fantasy, imagination, creative 
imagination, are examples. In memory the element of rec- 
ognition and temporal location is prominent. In fantasy 
both of these elements are lacking ; and the activity is 
automatic, resulting often in a straggling series of inco- 
herent, and often grotesque images. In imagination the 
will controls and directs the reproductive activity with ref- 
erence to an end. Fantasy passes into imagination by an 
infusion of directing and rational volition, and imagination 
sinks into fantasy by its withdrawal. Memory also sinks 
into fantasy or passes into imagination as the element of 
recognition and temporal location in past experience van- 
ishes. In actual experience, it is impossible to draw a 
fixed frontier between these forms. Generally some ele- 
ment of each is to be found in all. 

Perfect recollection would involve the reproduction of 
the content of a past experience with all its elements and 
relations complete. This is seldom possible, except when 
the experience is near and simple. An experience involves 
both objective and subjective relations. By the former, we 
mean those relations which exist among the elements of 
the experience considered in itself as a mental state. By 
the latter, we mean the relation of the experience as a 
whole to self and our total experience. Both of these rela- 
tions are liable to dislocation or displacement. Memory 
never gives all the elements of experience, and seldom 
gives them in their exact relations to one another. The 
position of an experience in our total experience, also, is 
very often mistaken. When the fact is at a distance, the 
temporal order is often inverted ; and sometimes imagina- 
tion takes the form of memory, and creates its objects out- 
right. The local signs of events in the distant past are 



272 PSYCHOLOGY. 

generally very indistinct ; and all that memory produces is 
the conviction that we have had such or such an experi- 
ence. In this stage memory is especially liable to become 
creative, or at least to adopt the fictions of imagination for 
realities of past experience. 

It is this fact, that complete recollection involves many 
elements, which accounts for the paradox that we often 
remember something without being able to recall it. We 
often remember an event apart from its relations, and 
especially apart from its local sign ; and in that case we 
say that we remember it, but cannot place it. Often, too, 
we remember certain elements which assure us that cer- 
tain other elements were present ; and then we seem to 
remember elements out of memory. Often, again, we re- 
call ourselves as having had experience under certain cir- 
cumstances, without being able to fill up its outlines ; or 
something reminds us of something, we cannot tell what. 

Objects are bound together in experience in various rela- 
tions, according to the degree of mental development. In 
the dawn of intelligence, the categories of space and time 
are much more prominent in the mental life than those 
of cause, order, purpose, etc. The latter categories, being 
more abstract, are reached at a later date. Memory fol- 
lows the original experience in this respect. At first, it 
tends to reproduce all things indifferently in their original 
spatial and temporal order. Memory of this type is often 
remarkably tenacious. Long series of words combined into 
meaningless sentences have been reproduced with astonish- 
ing accuracy. But as the original experience involved no 
high mentality, so the memory of the same involves no 
high mentality. Indeed, this kind of memory is often 
associated with a low grade of intelligence ; so much so, 
that a strong memory of this sort is often spoken of as a 
mark of mental weakness. This kind of memory is most 
prominent in childhood. 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 273 

But as intellect develops, the tendency in the original 
experience is to pass over the insignificant and irrelevant, 
and to fix the attention only on the significant and im- 
portant. Memory shows the same progress and selection. 
This has been thought to be another type of memory, and 
has been called the philosophic memory. But, in truth, 
the reproductive activity only follows the original order of 
interest and attention. The selective activity is first mani- 
fested in the original experience ; and by such selection 
and the direction of interest, the mind prescribes the direc- 
tion of reproduction. 

The general law of reproduction shows that an experience 
will be the more certainly recalled the more ties of connec- 
tion it has with our total experience. Thus, the intelligible 
is more easily recalled than the unintelligible. In the for- 
mer case, we have both a sense experience and an intellect- 
ual one ; in the latter, the intellectual element is lacking. 
In memory in general, the more the intellect is brought 
into play, the easier the memory. This is due to the dou- 
ble fact, (1.) that a new bond of connection is given, and 
(2.) the logical relation of the parts also constitutes a bond. 
No one can remember the premises and forget the conclu- 
sion. When the mental element is lacking, the matter is 
generally soon forgotten. " Crammed " examinations are 
examples. Things once understood, in their causes, con- 
nections, consequences, etc., are not easily forgotten. But 
this is not a particular kind of memory, but the natural 
result of the form of the original experience. 

The energy and direction of memory in general further 
depend on the attention and interest which entered into 
the original experience. Other things being equal, the 
energy of memory will vary with the intensity of attention 
in the original experience ; and other things being equal, 
it will vary also with the interest felt in that experience. 
That object is far more likely to be remembered which 

18 



274 PSYCHOLOGY. 

awakens feeling, than one which is indifferent. Many ob- 
jects are incessantly passing through consciousness ; yet, as 
having no significance, attracting no attention, and awaken- 
ing no interest, they are instantly forgotten. But while it 
is a general law that we remember only that to which we 
attend and in which we take interest, there are exceptions 
enough firmly to demonstrate the rule. Often some utterly 
meaningless or isolated fact will obtrude itself with the ut- 
most persistency, while some important fact escapes us. 

A common form of expressing the fact just dwelt upon 
is, that the revivability of experience depends upon the 
depth of the original impression, while the depth in turn 
depends upon attention and interest. The impression is 
said to be further deepened by repetition, and especially 
by frequency of impression. This form of speech arises 
from a desire to picture the process, and often leads to a 
false appearance of insight. We know simply that a defi- 
nite form of mental activity may be reproduced ; and that 
this possibility increases with a variety of circumstances, 
such as interest, attention, repetition, and especially fre- 
quency of repetition. On the other hand, a long cessation 
from a given form of activity makes its renewal increas- 
ingly difficult. Thus, one may practically forget his native 
language by long residence in foreign lands ; yet even here 
one retains something at least in an increased facility for 
reacquiring it. 

The possibility of reproduction varies with the nature of 
the experience. Sensations and emotions can only be very 
feebly recalled. In both cases we are greatly aided by lan- 
guage. In the case of sensations we are aided by a nascent 
affection of the organism. In the case of the emotions we 
either produce emotion by reproducing the circumstances, 
or we remember that we had an emotion without being able 
clearly to reproduce it except in name. It is only to these 
elements that the distinction of vivid and faint states applies 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 275 

as the mark of difference between present and remembered 
experience. It is otherwise with the products of the un- 
derstanding. Forms, thoughts, purposes, admit of being 
completely recovered without any loss of their original 
vividness. 

Reproduction, whether as memory or as simple imagin- 
ing power, varies very greatly with different persons, and 
often with different senses or different forms of experience 
of the same person. Many have a good memory of form, 
others of color, others of names, others of ideas, etc. These 
differences are largely matters of training, and to some ex- 
tent result from original differences of constitution. These 
differences, however, are probably less to be sought in the 
reproductive faculty than in the original tastes and inter- 
ests of the person, whereby the experience is first modified, 
and thus direction is given to reproduction. Galton has 
sought to treat the subject statistically, by issuing a series 
of questions to which answers were obtained. The results 
are given in his work, " Inquiries into Human Faculties." 
In particular, he claims that the power of visual represen- 
tation differs greatly, and that this power is generally weak 
in men given to abstract thinking. But apart from the 
original difference which inclines one to abstract thought, 
the law of habit seems adequate to account for this fact. 

Memory is commonly said to be the form of mental 
action which is most dependent on physical conditions, 
and the one in which mental failure first shows itself. 
This is probably much exaggerated. A failure of memory 
is easily discerned, and cannot be mistaken; while a failure 
of judgment by no means manifests itself with equal clear- 
ness and explicitness. Under the influence of the assump- 
tion, also, all failures of memory with the old are referred 
to old age, while the myriad cases of forgetfulness in all 
ages are overlooked. Finally, if there be a greater appar- 
ent failure of memory than of the judgment, it is possible 



276 PSYCHOLOGY. 

that this is due less to the failure of memory proper, than 
to a growing lack of interest in the subjects forgotten. 

The actual recall of objects is not secured by their sim- 
ple revivability ; there must be, in addition, something in 
present experience to suggest them. This fact has been 
dwelt upon at length in treating of the mechanism of re- 
production, and needs no further description here. The 
fact itself, however, serves to explain a great many forms 
of forgetfulness which often seem mysterious. A somnam- 
bulist awakes and recalls nothing of his dream ; but when 
the dream recurs, he may take up the activity of the pre- 
vious dream as if he had full recollection of it. Or a 
sick person may recover and forget all the events of his 
illness, and on occasion of a second attack recall them. 
Ordinary dreams, also, are generally promptly forgotten. 
Such facts seem due to the fact that these events have no 
associations with the normal daily life; and hence there 
is nothing in daily experience to suggest them. Hence, 
though revivable, they remain unrevived. 

Since memory, like all mental functions, is physically 
conditioned, we should expect a general failure of memory 
with the failure of the organism. Such a fact would have 
in it nothing surprising. But there are various losses of 
memory which are much more difficult to manage. The 
progressive loss of memory in certain forms of aphasia ad- 
mits of some psychological explanation; but other facts, 
such as the fogetting of a single language, or certain classes 
of subjects, remain utterly opaque on any theory. 

In fantasy the reproductive activity is purely automatic. 
It has no reference to an actual past, on the one hand, nor 
to any mental aim, on the other. This activity is in inverse 
ratio to the self-conscious and rational activity of the 
soul. Hence it is at its highest when the will is relaxed, or 
when reason is overturned. Dreams and revery exhibit the 
purest forms of its action. Revery is commonly less gro- 



i 



THE FORMS OE REPRODUCTION. 277 

tesque and impossible than dreams of the same sort, be- 
cause there is more of rational direction in the former than 
in the latter, and because the corrective influence of the 
external world is more prominent. 

There is no need to add much about the imagination. 
In its widest sense this is the power of representing absent 
or unreal objects and events to ourselves without any ref- 
erence to our own past. It differs, then, from memory, 
in not producing the past as it was, in lacking the element 
of recognition, and in having a certain creative character. 
Yarious forms of imagination have been distinguished as 
the mathematical, the artistic, the poetic, the scientific, and 
the philosophical. These represent no distinctions of im- 
agination however, but only differences of objects to which 
imagination is directed. 

The significance of imagination for the higher uses of the 
intellect is obvious. It enables us in most cases to put our 
problems clearly before us, and thus furnishes the psycho- 
logical conditions of thinking. A chief condition of pene- 
trative thought is that the data of the problem be distinctly 
presented and steadily held before the mind. When this is 
impossible, thought becomes utterly uncertain. It is like 
the vision of a dizzy person, or the counting of one who can- 
not remember from one number to another what the last 
one was. But the ability thus sharply to present and re- 
tain oar objects depends, in most cases, upon the imaging 
power ; and it is here that differences of mental power are 
most manifest. The ability to reason profoundly depends 
in many cases quite as much upon the imagination as upon 
abstract logical penetration. In this sense imagination is 
a pronounced element of mental strength, and a necessary 
condition of greatness. Imagination as such is never a 
mark of weakness, though it may become a source of weak- 
ness when combined with a feeble judgment and a dreamy 
character. Then we have the day-dreamer, pleasing him- 



278 PSYCHOLOGY. 

self with fictitious objects, and losing sight of the world 
of reality. Indeed, it is not imagination which makes the 
day-dreamer, but the fanciful content of his imaginings. 

Imagination also underlies all invention and discovery, 
and precedes all creative production. It is equally neces- 
sary in the moral realm. It underlies all sympathy and all 
formation of ideals. The ideal exists only in the imagina- 
tion, and to sympathize with another we must put ourselves 
in his place. Indeed, our life is largely spent in a world of 
imagination. The actual present fact is of little interest. 
Memories, expectations, goods to be gained, evils to be 
shunned, — these constitute the staple of life, and are the 
prolific source of its joys and woes. Out of it are the 
issues of life and death. 

In speaking of sensations, we pointed out that the mind 
has a certain power over them. By directing its attention 
in other directions, sights and sounds may fail to become 
objects of knowledge. With some persons this power of 
abstraction is very strong ; and they can carry on a train 
of thought in the midst of confusion, such as the noise of 
a street, or the practising of a musical student. Without 
this power to some extent a rational mental life is impos- 
sible. The mind must be able to abstract itself from its 
sensations, and direct its attention in any desired direction. 
In speaking of perception, also, we found the power of self- 
direction necessary to explain error without cancelling 
truth. If the mind be throughout subject to its states, 
instead of controlling them, then no trust in reason is 
possible. The same need appears in studying reproduc- 
tion. If the process were entirely removed from our con- 
trol, the mind would be so stormed upon by the past that 
it would have no leisure to attend to the present. We 
occasionally meet with persons in whom the representative 
activity is abnormally prominent ; and the result is always 
mental disorder. This is especially the case in insanity. 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION. 279 

As the mind must be able to withdraw its attention from 
the manifold impulses which at every moment come pour- 
ing up from skin, eye, ear, muscles, and viscera, so it is 
equally necessary that it be able to withdraw its attention 
from the past and attend to the present. It must be able 
to control the direction of reproduction, so as to bring it 
into harmony with its present thoughts and plans. And 
this within certain limits the mind can do. It can form 
new associations and undo old ones, and, by directing its 
present activity in a definite direction, exclude all those 
functions which are incompatible with it. When this ele- 
ment of volitional and rational direction is wanting in 
memory, we have a chaotic reproduction of details with- 
out order or selection, and with perpetual and wearying 
digressions. 

The tendency of experience is to give the mental nature 
a fixed set, which, when once established, can only with 
difficulty, if at all, be changed. Settled associations are 
established, and the spontaneities of thought and feeling 
flow in certain channels. Such a total mental cast repre- 
sents the person's character, and it tends to fixedness or 
permanence. 



280 PSYCHOLOGY. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 

In a previous chapter we have sought to show the ex- 
istence of a specific thought-activity distinct from any 
function of the sensibility, and have dwelt upon some of its 
leading norms of procedure. We have now to consider it 
more in detail. 

In the traditional doctrine thought is distinguished from 
perception, or simple apprehension, as a later process. In 
the former we know the concrete and particular ; in the 
latter we reach the abstract and universal. Perceptive 
knowledge, then, is of individual cases only ; thought 
knowledge is through universals. It is already plain that 
we differ from this view. For us there are two grand di- 
visions of the purely intellectual life, (1.) the raw material 
of the sensibility, and (2.) the process whereby this mate- 
rial is worked over into the forms of the understanding. 
Thought includes this entire process, and perception is only 
the first stage of its activity. Indeed, we have seen that 
perception in its completed form is second, and not first. 

The thought-process presents two stages, the sponta- 
neous or automatic, and the reflective and volitional. In 
the former stage thought goes on by the psychological 
necessity of our mental constitution ; in the latter, it be- 
comes self-conscious and self-directing. In the former 
stage the laws and categories of thought are implicitly 
present as principles of our constitution ; in the latter, 
they are explicit as formal rules of mental procedure. 

This constitutional activity furnishes the basis of reflect- 
ive thought. Whenever reflection begins, Ave find ourselves 






THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 281 

already in possession of a mental world. We have just 
seen that the world of things exists for us only as we con- 
struct it in thought by bringing into sensation the catego- 
ries of the intellect. Besides these, we find also a world 
of ideas which lay no claim to substantive existence, but 
which exist only through a highly complex mental activity. 
These mental products, whether common nouns, adjectives, 
or verbs, are all universals, and can only arise through an 
activity of classification. Moreover, we find this mental 
store fixed for us in the forms of language. This work is 
not the product of our volition, but the expression of our 
constitution. In it we see the mind operating, not with 
consciousness of its aims and governing principles, but 
according to the necessity of its nature. 

The universal form of knowledge is the judgment. 
Knowledge cannot exist in isolated ideas, but only in the 
union of ideas into judgments. But judgments are impos- 
sible without the ideas united in them. I cannot say this 
is red or green, without having already some idea of red 
or green. A judgment of likeness or unlikeness is indeed 
possible between any two experiences whatever ; but such 
judgments would never get us beyond the individual cases, 
and the mind would lose itself in hopeless confusion as 
soon as experience became at all complex. Articulate 
thought cannot go on until, in addition to the judgment of 
likeness, the common element is abstracted from the par- 
ticular cases and from their individual temporal and spatial 
relations, and is set apart as a fixed unit of thought hav- 
ing only logical relations. When this is done, the complex 
experience is reduced to unity, and thus to a portable 
form. This unit of thought is a logical universal. It 
has no temporal or spatial relations, but exists as a gen- 
eral expression for all possible cases of its kind, and as a 
standard for their classification. 

But since the universal in some form and in some degree 



282 PSYCHOLOGY. 

of development antedates reflective thought and is a neces- 
sity of all thinking, we must reckon the tendency to ab- 
stract, to generalize, to classify, as a part of our mental 
constitution. When many experiences have a common 
element, the mind tends by a certain psychological neces- 
sity to fix attention upon that element, to abstract it from 
its surroundings, to form it into a fixed unit of thought, 
and finally to use it as a standard of classification. 

A double condition, then, must be fulfilled : (1.) the 
experiences themselves must admit of classification, and 
(2.) there must be in the soul an inherent tendency to 
pass from the particular to the universal. The first con- 
dition, while necessary to thought, is not necessary in 
thought. There is no contradiction in the notion that all 
our experiences should have been as incommensurable as 
the products of the several senses, say colors and sounds, 
or odors and pressures. In that case a thought life would 
have been impossible ; for the raw material of experience 
would have been unadapted to our rational nature. The 
inner structure of the world of sensibility, whereby it lends 
itself to the operations of the understanding, is something 
which thought does not make, but finds. 

The second condition has been generally repudiated by 
the associational school ; and the claim has been made 
that by simple association like experiences must coalesce, 
and differentiate themselves from unlike, and thus produce 
general ideas. This claim overlooks the nature and func- 
tion of the universal altogether. If the question were 
to determine the content of a given universal, something 
might be said for the claim that it is reached by averaging 
the particulars ; but the universal is something very differ- 
ent from such an average or resultant. The universal is 
an abstraction from all particular cases, and is itself never 
given in specific experience. The universal is not only 
never given in reality, it is impossible in reality. The 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 283 

particulars, on the other hand, do not coalesce to form the 
universal, but are ranged under the universal. We have 
also pointed out that association does not even provide for 
the recognition of likeness, upon which classification de- 
pends. The very utmost that association could do would 
be the presentation of like experiences. The recognition 
of this likeness, the abstraction of the common element, 
the making of it into a fixed unit of thought, and its use as 
a standard for further classification, — these are elements 
for which association makes no provision, even in the case 
of things which can be presented to the senses. This is so 
patent as to be palpable in the case of the majority of ab- 
stract and scientific conceptions, which, instead of coming 
of themselves, are reached only through great labor. This 
gathering of many objects under a single conception, which 
is not itself one of the objects, but the representative of all 
alike, is something added to any possible product of asso- 
ciation. It can only be viewed as the outcome of a specific 
tendency in the mind to pass from the particular to the 
universal. 

It is at this point that the possibility of language arises. 
Language deals with universals as soon as it gets clear of 
the interjectional stage; and interjections are not words, 
but noises. Even the particular thing must have some 
element of universality in it before it can become an object 
of articulate thought or speech. When the classifying ten- 
dency of the mind is lacking, there can be no rational 
utterance, for there would be nothing to utter. For the 
production of language several elements are needed. There 
must be (1.) a plurality of experiences, (2.) an abstraction 
of the common element of these experiences as a fixed unit 
of thought, (3.) the creation of a name for this common 
element, and (4.) an extension of this name to all the 
individuals of the group possessing this element. 

In classification the mind grasps a multitude of cases in 



284 PSYCHOLOGY. 

a single conception, which stands for all alike. But objects 
themselves are often complex, and must be reduced to 
simplicity to prevent our losing ourselves in the mass of 
details. The mind guards against this by fixing its atten- 
tion upon some striking feature to the neglect of the others. 
This serves to identify the thing ; and the other elements 
are referred to only as occasion may require. It is this 
form of abstraction which is especially prominent in the 
formation of language. Things are named from their lead- 
ing trait. Accordingly, when we get down to the roots of 
a language, we find some abstract conception expressive of 
a prominent quality of the thing in question. In lack of a 
verbal sign, this abstract quality itself serves as the sym- 
bol of the thing. In both the classifying and the symbol- 
izing process, the mental aim is to master complexity by 
reducing it to simplicity and unity. 

The logical necessity of the several elements just men- 
tioned is plain, except in the case of the vocal sign. The 
others belong to thought itself ; the latter is something of 
an arbitrary addition. Its teleological significance as a 
condition of rational society is apparent; but the inner 
necessity by which it is reached is not clearly seen. If 
it were not for the multiplicity of languages, one might be 
tempted to think that there is some pre-established har- 
mony between sound and sense ; but the facts clearly show 
that the actual sounds are arbitrary, at least within the 
easy compass of the vocal organs. We content ourselves 
with pointing out the logical conditions of language, and 
leave to others to guess at the physiological and psycho- 
logical structure which leads to its realization. 

If the view expounded be correct, language depends on 
thought. Before the word, there must be the meaning. 
Thought must establish its classes and its short-hand sym- 
bols, or the vocal sign will be only a noise. This sign has 
a double function, — the communication of thought, and 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 285 

the registration of thought. The generation of thought 
must be sought elsewhere. This order, however, has often 
been inverted, and thought has been made the product of 
language. The truth in this notion is, that language as a 
register of thought may very greatly abbreviate the work 
of thought. Every word expresses the result of a process 
of abstraction and generalization; and we who inherit a 
language find a vast amount of mental work done for us. 
We have simply to understand the language, not to con- 
struct it. The difference is at least as great as that be- 
tween understanding a demonstration and inventing one. 
A very commonplace student can understand what only 
Newton or Laplace could discover. 

But language not only serves thought by storing up its 
results and abbreviating its processes, it also often mis- 
leads thought, and thus becomes responsible for much error. 
Some of the chief blunders of speculation have been dis- 
eases of language. Its vagueness and ambiguity, when ap- 
plied to many facts, are sources of mistake ; but its chief 
danger lies in the fact that it can be used without due re- 
gard to the underlying thought. In this way phrases, 
doctrines, and even philosophical systems, have been con- 
structed, which have the most swelling sound but are empty 
of the slightest substance. While, then, thought must al- 
ways be indebted to language, it must at the same time 
exercise critical supervision over it. 

In studying the genesis of judgments, we may consider 
either the logical or the psychological order. In the former 
case we should decide that judgments of sensation are basal, 
as the raw material is directly given, and we have only to 
recognize the likeness or unlikeness which exists. Judg- 
ments of time, space, and number would come next, and, 
last of all, judgments of substance and causation. But 
though this may be the logical order, it certainly is not the 
psychological order. The central idea around which the 



286 PSYCHOLOGY. 

mental life spontaneously grows is that of things. This is 
the idea which supports all the rest, and to which, in one 
form or another, all others attach themselves. Qualities 
are qualities of things ; relations are relations of things ; 
numbers are numbers of things ; activities are activities of 
things. In spontaneous consciousness, judgments of sen- 
sation are never actually made until there has been a con- 
siderable practice in abstraction. Our first judgments are 
not that we have sensations or perceive phenomena, but 
that we perceive things. That a sense object is only a 
phenomenon or bundle of qualities, is a proposition which 
spontaneous thought cannot even understand. So little is 
it true psychologically that things are built up out of per- 
ceived qualities, that the converse is rather true, that quali- 
ties as such are reached only through the analysis of things. 
The changes in a sense aggregate first teach us that it has 
separable qualities : and it is only after the experience of 
such change that we distinguish the thing from its quali- 
ties. Until then it is all thing and no quality. In like 
manner, the idea of causation arises only as the changes 
and movements of things are discovered, and thus the no- 
tion of activity is reached. The notion of number first 
arises through the experience of similar things. Whenever 
we first come upon the mind in its spontaneous working, 
we find it dealing with things. The categories inherent in 
our mental constitution give a form to experience, and pro- 
duce original syntheses, before the mind itself becomes con- 
scious of its own aims and the principles which govern it. 
These syntheses are not the product of reflection, but the 
outcome of our mental nature ; and when the psychologist 
comes to study them, he cannot hope to come upon them in 
the making, but only to find the mental principles on which 
they depend. His work will consist in taking apart what 
the mind has, by the necessity of its nature, joined together, 
and not by any means in helping the mind to construct its 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 287 

world of thoughts and things. This construction was at 
once too complex in its nature and too important for prac- 
tical life to be left to our devices ; and a law of our nature 
does for us far better than we could do for ourselves. 

But this question of psychological priority in the order 
of judgments has no speculative interest. That which has 
made it seem so important is the fancy that, if we could 
only find the psychologically first, we should discover the 
true original of intelligence, and might regard all later 
manifestations as phases of that first element. This mis- 
take has already been sufficiently dwelt upon. 

Spontaneous thought gives us the world of things as it 
exists for perception, and the world of thought as it exists 
in language. It brings neither of these worlds, however, 
to a point where all the demands of reflective thought are 
met. Spontaneous thought remains on the surface of the 
world of things, and its thought world is vague and in- 
exact. When it comes to science, the classifications of 
common sense often have to be abandoned altogether, as 
being superficial or mistaken ; and its terminology is so 
inadequate or misleading, that a new one has to be created 
outright. In order, then, that knowledge shall be assured 
and extended, it is necessary that reflective thought begin. 
In this the mind seeks to become conscious of its own laws 
and principles, to give an account of its processes and aims, 
and to render our spontaneous conceptions and judgments 
more clear and exact. The doing of this work is the espe- 
cial function of logic. 

The treatment of the judgment in formal logic is often 
entirely false to its psychological character. Fundamen- 
tally, a judgment is the establishment of a relation between 
the content of two notions. This relation does not exist 
between the notions as mental acts, but only between their 
logical content. But this relation does not admit of being 
reduced to a single form. Judgments take place under all 



288 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the categories, and vary accordingly. We have judgments 
of things, and judgments of their various relations of space, 
time, number, quantity, dependence, likeness, and unlike- 
ness, and, finally, judgments of the relations of these rela- 
tions. Attributive judgments take place under the category 
either of substance and property, or of subject and predi- 
cate. Judgments of dependence depend on the category of 
causation. Spatial judgments depend on space and its sub- 
categories. Quantitative judgments depend on the category 
of quantity in its various forms. In the attributive judg- 
ment, the predicate P is declared to belong to or inhere 
in the subject S. That is, whoever thinks S in its com- 
pleteness must include P as a part of its content. In the 
causal judgment, P is declared to be the effect of S. In 
the quantitative judgment, P is put equal to or greater or 
less than S. In the classificatory judgment, S is included 
in the class P, or the mark P is affirmed of S. Each cat- 
egory has its own type of judgment. 

For various technical reasons, logic has not recognized 
this fact, but has sought to reduce all judgments to a 
single type. The traditional logic has regarded subsump- 
tion as the essential form of the judgment. Subject and 
predicate are class terms, and their only relation is that 
of inclusion or exclusion. Accordingly, to say that snow 
is white means that snow is included in the class of white 
things. This meaning can indeed be derived from the 
judgment ; for snow would not be white if it were not 
included in the class of white things. But at the same 
time it is plain that psychologically such a rendering of 
the judgment is false. Psychologically, the judgment is 
one of predication, and not of inclusion ; and the meaning 
is, that white is an attribute of snow. It would never occur 
to any one but a logician to think first of a set of white 
things, and then to identify snow with one of the set. 

Indeed, so far from viewing subsumption as the essential 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 289 

form of the judgment, we must rather regard it as an arti- 
ficial type, which seldom or never occurs in spontaneous 
thought. Even when both subject and predicate are nouns, 
the attributive character of the judgment is still apparent. 
Thus, Iron is a metal, means that iron has the properties 
of a metal, and not that iron is included in the class of 
metals. Or if we say that oaks are trees, we do not think 
of the general class of trees and then put oaks in the class, 
but we mean to attribute to the objects denoted by oaks 
the properties signified by tree. Indeed, the attributive 
judgment is the real foundation of the subsumptive one ; 
for how could things be subsumed under a class, if they 
had not the attribute which the class mark implies ? The 
logical reading may be allowed for convenience' sake, but 
only so long as it does not pretend to be a true rendering 
of the psychological fact, but confesses itself to be a logical 
makeshift. 

It is manifestly impossible to apply the principle of sub- 
sumption to such judgments as that A is to the right of B ; 
A is later than B ; A is longer than B ; A = B, etc. 
The absurdity of the principle when applied to mathe- 
matics has always been so evident, that some logicians 
have sought to save it by denying that logic has any appli- 
cation to mathematics. 

Some modern innovators have thought to reduce the 
relation of subject and predicate to that of identity. If 
snow is white, of course snow must be identical with some 
white thing, namely, snow. If iron is a metal it must be 
identical with some member of the class of metals, that is, 
with iron. Hence, " Iron is a metal," can be read, "Iron = 
iron-metal." Here, again, the grotesque reading may be 
allowed if there be any gain in it ; but the psychological 
distortion is even worse than in the preceding case. Both 
views were constructed without reference to psychological 
truth, but only to the exigencies of logical rules. 

19 



290 PSYCHOLOGY. 

But it is not our purpose to give any list of judgments 
and their classes, but only to call attention (1.) to the 
difference between the actual judgment of the mental life 
and the artificial judgment of the logicians, and (2.) to the 
fact that the categories are the principles under which judg- 
ments take place. 

In the judgment we first come upon the ideal distinctions 
of truth and error. Many of our mental states represent 
nothing beyond themselves. They are simply facts, and as 
such are neither true nor false, but simply real. Again, 
many connections of mental states are of the same sort. 
They cohere by the force of association, but this coherence 
is accidental and represents no truth. It is different with 
the judgment. The relation of ideas in the judgment is 
not merely a subjective fact in the individual consciousness, 
but claims to represent an independent truth. 

This claim presupposes an order existing independently 
of individual volition and consciousness. This may be an 
order of fact or an order of reason. In the order of fact 
there are certain things in certain relations and with cer- 
tain laws. In the order of reason there are certain ideas 
which belong together, and others which are mutually re- 
pugnant. Judgments are true which agree with this order ; 
those are false which depart from it. In the true judgment 
conceptions are joined which in the nature of things or in 
the nature of reason belong together ; in the false judgment 
conceptions are joined which in the nature of things or in 
the nature of reason should be kept apart. What that 
order of fact and reason may imply, and what the nature of 
its existence may be, we leave to metaphysics to inquire. 
In actual experience we distinguish the order of fact from 
the order of reason ; and our judgments have constant ref- 
erence to one or the other. 

It is this reference which underlies what we call convic- 
tion, belief, assent, etc., and which gives the judgment its 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 291 

objective character. On this point there has been a curi- 
ous uncertainty among logicians. Some have insisted that 
things are united in the judgment; how otherwise could 
the judgment have objective significance? Others, seeing 
that things are not in the mind, and that the mind can 
never get beyond its thoughts of things, have held that only 
thoughts are united in the judgment. Neither view ex- 
presses the fact. The judgment as a process is of course 
subjective, and the elements of the judgment can never be 
more than our conceptions ; but their union or separation 
claims to represent an order of fact or reason which is 
independent of the judgment itself. This constitutes the 
objectivity and universality of the judgment, and expresses 
our conviction. What happens in assent or dissent beyond 
uniting or separating ideas, Mill declares to be a most intri- 
cate problem. The surplus consists in the tacit reference 
to a fixed order with which our thought agrees. 

The judgment, then, is an attempt to reproduce in thought 
some fact or synthesis of the universal order. We learn 
what these facts and syntheses are, from three leading 
sources, — experience, inference, and insight, or intuition. 

Concerning the first two there is no dispute. Experience 
and inference from experience are by universal consent the 
only source of knowledge of the world of fact except so far 
as the latter falls into the necessary forms of intelligence. 
Concerning the world of reason there is debate. One school 
holds that in this world there are universal truths, which 
the mind discerns by its own insight and takes on its own 
warrant. They are not held because the mind has found 
them to be true in experience, but because it perceives 
them to be necessarily true. Another school holds that 
the only warrant for believing anything to be true is that 
we have found it true in experience. Apart from this, the 
mind has no standard of true or false, possible or impos- 
sible ; in particular, it is utterly unable out of itself to dis- 



292 PSYCHOLOGY. 

cern any truth whatever. A famous formula for this 
doctrine is, that, for all we can say, two and two may 
make five in some other planet. This is the philosophi- 
cal aspect of the debate between the rational and the 
sensational school of philosophy, to which we referred in 
a previous chapter. 

In inference a relation is established between the subject 
and predicate of the conclusion, generally by means of their 
relation to some other notion or notions. If two things 
agree with a third thing in the same respect, they agree 
with each other in that respect. If one agrees and the 
other disagrees, they disagree with each other. The impor- 
tant thing is to establish a relation between the subject and 
predicate of the conclusion. This may be done by compar- 
ing them with one thing or with many ; in either case the 
conclusion is valid. The so-called fallacy of four terms in 
logic does not consist in the fact that the terms are four, 
but entirely in the fact that the premises establish no rela- 
tion between the subject and predicate of the conclusion. 

Actual inference does not proceed according to any one 
method. Sometimes a thing is subsumed under a class, 
and then the marks of the class are affirmed of the thing. 
This is the method of subsumption, and has been falsely 
assumed to be the only method. 

But quite as often we proceed by the method of substitu- 
tion. That which is true of a given thing is true of all 
equivalent things in so far as equivalent. We may, then, 
for the given thing substitute any equivalent thing and 
draw the appropriate conclusion. 

By using a little violence, we might make the latter 
method include the former ; but this would only gratify the 
logical lust for unity, and would in no way remove the fact 
that the mind actually follows both. Many forms of in- 
ference do not rest upon logical analysis, but on a direct 
intuition of the relations specified in the premises. Thus, 






THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 293 

A is earlier than B, and B is earlier than C ; hence A is 
earlier than C; — or A is to the right of B, and B is to the 
right of C ; hence A is to the right of C; — or A is larger 
than B, and B is larger than C; hence A is larger than 
C. Without the intuitions of space, time, and quantity, 
these premises would be impossible ; and the inferences are 
reached through intuition of the relations affirmed in the 
premises. We do not analyze the terms, but construct the 
relations and see the conclusion. But we must leave to 
logic to develop the various forms of inference. 

We have seen that the logical doctrine of the judgment is 
highly artificial, and often does violence to the psychologi- 
cal fact. This charge is even more applicable to the logical 
doctrine of inference. The traditional logic has held that 
all reasoning is upon class terms, and has had to resort to 
unspeakable distortions to provide for quantitative and sub- 
stitutional reasoning. Language, again, admits of the in- 
version of subject and predicate ; and this fact has been 
made the basis of an elaborate doctrine of mood and fig- 
ure, .as if the accident of language were the foundation of 
thought. Finally, under the influence of Aristotle, and 
the fancy that all reasoning must be subsumptive, one of 
these figures was decided to be the perfect figure ; and a 
highly complex verbal mechanism was devised for reducing 
all the moods of the imperfect figures to the perfect one. 
The ingenuity was boundless, but the procedure was arti- 
ficial, and the product absolutely worthless. There was no 
pretence of psychological truth, or even of increased practi- 
cal facility, but rather a barren study of verbal permutations, 
in which, moreover, the real nerve of inference was for the 
most part overlooked. In its latest form of symbolic logic 
this tendency has reached its climax by becoming purely 
mechanical. 

We return now to the question whether there are any 
truths of reason which are intuitively discerned. This 



294 PSYCHOLOGY. 

question divides into two : (1.) Are there any universal 
truths ? and (2.) How do we recognize them as such ? 
These two questions are seldom separated ; and the doc- 
trine of empiricism has always been vague and unsteady in 
consequence. Many empiricists have held that there are 
truths which are universally valid, but we reach them not 
by direct insight, but by inference or abstraction from ex- 
perience. This was the general view until the time of 
Hume, and in some belated minds it survives still. Others 
hold that we know nothing of universal truths, but only 
of rules which are valid within the limits of experience, 
with what has been naively called " a reasonable degree of 
extension to adjacent cases." 

The former view is forced to pass over into the latter. 
For since the truth is not known by direct insight, it must 
be derived in some way from experience ; and we have to 
show how a particular experience can prove a universal 
truth. But without the aid of some principle, no particu- 
lar experience can carry us beyond itself ; and if that prin- 
ciple itself is not self-evident, it also needs proof. Strict 
proof, then, is impossible without some self-evident princi- 
ples somewhere which the mind takes on its own warrant ; 
for in that case proof would never come to an end, and 
nothing would be proved. Hence, either we must credit 
the mind with a power of knowing some things on its own 
account and warrant, or we must pass on to the second 
phase of empiricism, and hold that we have no ground for 
believing that any truth is strictly universal. 

To empiricism in both forms mathematics has been a 
perennial stumbling-block. We have here a great body of 
apparent truth, which seems to be valid everywhere and 
always, and which is not abstracted from experience or 
proved by it. For mathematical truth there is no source 
beyond the mind itself. The science is built upon the 
basis of definitions, and the corresponding intuitions. To 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 295 

see that a straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points, we make no experiments, but construct the 
problem in thought. Most of the conceptions dealt with, 
also, have no analogue in experience, but are generated by 
the mind itself. Roots, logarithms, differentials, integrals, 
are examples. The mind evolves such notions out of itself, 
and deals with them by its own insight. And even in 
cases where the quantities admit of representation, experi- 
ence is still unable to deal with them because of their 
vastness, or the fineness of perception and measurement 
required. The products of large quantities, the properties 
of curves, the ratio of the circumference of the circle to 
its diameter, are examples. In all these cases the mind 
works by methods of its own invention, and tests these 
methods by its own insight. Proof and disproof are alike 
impossible to any form of objective experience. Either, 
then, we must allow that the mind is able to know some 
things on its own account, or we must drag the whole 
system of mathematics down into ruin, and say that, for 
aught we know, two and two may make five in some other 
planet. But why five rather than fifty, or five hundred, or 
three, or nothing, would be hard to say ; or why in another 
planet, and not in another street or another moment, or for 
another person, would be equally hard to say. Indeed, it 
would be difficult to give any reason why two and two 
should not equal all these things at once, and at the same 
time be unequal to all at once. The condition of absurdity 
is the existence of a rational standard ; and when this 
has been struck down, there is no longer anything irra- 
tional or absurd. Hence, until the empiricists have either 
overthrown mathematics, or shown the experience upon 
which mathematical truths are based, it seems safe to 
hold that the mind is able to know some things by its 
own insight. 

Facts which are immediately given in experience, and 



296 PSYCHOLOGY. 

propositions which are either proved or directly seen to be 
true, are elements of knowledge. Besides these, there is 
a great realm of belief. This comprises all propositions 
accepted as true whose denial would involve no contra- 
diction of consciousness, and no violation of the laws of 
thought. Most of what is practically important in life 
lies in this realm. If our mental possessions should sud- 
denly shrink to what we know, the residue would be 
paltry and pitiable in the extreme. It is only by ventur- 
ing beyond knowledge that a social, or even a mental, 
existence becomes possible. 

To this realm of belief belong trust in testimony, the 
practical faith of man in man, our faith in the uniformity 
of nature and the whole department of scientific and specu- 
lative theory. This theory is throughout an attempt to 
rationalize our experience, and rests upon assumptions 
which while practically necessary are forever speculatively 
undemonstrable. 

In this realm we attain to practical, in distinction from 
theoretical, certainty ; and for life and practice the former 
is often as good as the latter, and perhaps even better. In 
fact, the human mind is adjusted to easy belief ; so much 
so, that the function of argument and criticism is less to 
produce than to reduce belief. We generalize hastily ; we 
take for granted that what has been will be ; and we de- 
duce a law from a very scanty experience. This fact has 
probably a teleological explanation; and in any case it is a 
highly fortunate circumstance. It is the source of that 
practical certainty which is necessary to our orderly mental 
life. If man had to wait to reason out his way, he would 
never get started, and if he should start would soon stop. 
For beings with our feeble insight and practical necessities, 
some other and shorter way was necessary ; and this was 
provided by so adjusting our constitution that a system of 
beliefs should spring up from our experience, not by way 



THE THOUGHT-PROCESS. 297 

of strict logical inference, but by the psychological necessi- 
ties of our nature. 

Yery many of our beliefs are of this kind. They do not 
represent reasoned truths, but practical assumptions. They 
do not express mental inferences, but rather the mental 
nature itself, its tendencies, interests, the grade of its de- 
velopment, etc. Beliefs of this kind are not displaced by 
being disproved ; indeed, they very rarely admit of either 
proof or disproof ; they vanish only by changing the men- 
tal soil. They spring naturally from one kind of mental 
soil, and die out on another. As long as the conditions 
are favorable, beliefs of this kind are held with a practical 
certainty which surpasses logical demonstration. The psy- 
chology of belief is highly complex, and has never been 
adequately studied. 

The same tendency which leads the mind to form classes 
from individuals leads it also to classify these classes, thus 
forming more and more comprehensive groups. It would 
seem that in this way we must at last come down to a 
single class, comprehending all others ; but this is true 
only for limited fields of thought. In the organic world 
we may pass from individuals through species and genera 
to the most general conceptions of plant and animal ; and 
these again may be united in the one notion of organic 
existence. But when we take the mental life as a whole, 
we come down to no such unity, but rather to a series of 
conceptions which admit of no further reduction. Judg- 
ments take place under the various categories of substance 
and attribute, cause and effect, space, time, number, etc.; 
and if we should classify all our mental objects, we should 
find distinct and irreducible classes corresponding to the 
categories. In this way the categories which exist prima- 
rily as implicit laws of mental procedure emerge as distinct 
and recognized conceptions. 



298 PSYCHOLOGY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 

All but materialists distinguish between soul and body ; 
and this fact gives rise to a special set of questions con- 
cerning their mutual relations. We need to know, if pos- 
sible, the laws according to which they affect each other, 
and their significance for each other. This general prob- 
lem we treat under the head of the interaction of soul and 
body. By interaction we mean only that they affect each 
other. Indeed, this is all that the union of soul and bod} r 
means in any case. It has become conventional with the 
frivolous opponents of the spiritual view to ask for the 
band which ties soul and body together. The band is 
the fact of mutual influence. Other band there is none ; 
and no other is needed. 

The complete unlikeness of soul and body in sponta- 
neous thought has led to a very general conviction that 
this mutual affection is impossible ; and many theories 
have been invented to escape it. Materialism and idealism 
go around it by denying either the soul or the body. The 
Cartesians invented their theory of occasionalism, accord- 
ing to which physical and mental states do not cause each 
other, but are the occasion upon which a cause above both 
produces one or the other, according to circumstances. 
Leibnitz further showed that the interaction of soul and 
body is nothing especially difficult, but that all interaction 
between any two things whatever is equally mysterious. 
As his solution, he proposed the doctrine of the pre-estab- 
lished harmony, according to which all things were so 
adjusted to one another in the beginning that they run 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 299 

together yet without any dynamic influence. The discus- 
sion of these difficulties belongs to metaphysics. For our 
purpose it is indifferent what view we adopt, as we only 
aim to discover the law of their mutual changes. We will 
only add, that the fancy that the interaction of soul and 
body is a specially difficult problem rests upon the further 
fancy that matter is a series of inert lumps which act only 
by impact, — a whim which is absolutely groundless. The 
presence of a spark determines oxygen and hydrogen to 
unite ; the affection of a nerve determines the mind to feel. 
One fact is just as mysterious as the other. 

The first question we consider concerns the mutual space 
relations of soul and body, or, as it is commonly called, 
the seat of the soul. This question, of course, exists only 
on the supposition that space is real ; and this reality 
metaphysics finds reasons for doubting. Apart from this 
scruple the following considerations are possible : 

1. Misled by the apparent immediateness of sensation 
in every part of the body, many have held that the sen- 
sation is felt where it seems to be, and hence that the 
soul is omnipresent in the body. But the simple fact that 
there is no sensation unless there be continuous nerve 
communication with the brain disposes of this view, or at 
least of its apparent grounds. It is hardly credible that 
the soul which is in the fingers, and feels in the fingers, is 
still unable to feel until a nervous affection has been trans- 
mitted to the brain. Hence there is a very general agree- 
ment that the seat of the soul is in the brain. This belief, 
together with the assumption that action can only take 
place through contact, led the earlier anatomists to look 
for some central point in the brain in which all the nerves, 
sensory and motor alike, should have a common junction. 
Such a point, it was assumed, would certainly be the seat 
of the soul. The Cartesians fancied for a time that such a 
point had been found in the pineal gland ; and this was 



300 PSYCHOLOGY. 

called the seat of the soul in the Cartesian philosophy. In 
fact, however, there is no such point of common junction 
in the brain ; or we may say that there is no central 
station to which all messages come and from which all 
messages proceed. 

2. Must we, then, think of the soul as omnipresent in 
the brain, or as located at any or all of the nerve endings ? 
This is purely a matter of taste. The statement that the 
soul is in the brain means only that the soul is in direct 
interaction with the brain. A change in the brain is at- 
tended by a change in the soul, and, conversely, a change 
in the soul may be attended by a change in the brain ; but 
it is not necessary to think them in contact. Astronomy 
finds no difficulty in the assumption that one atom can 
immediately affect another, across the whole diameter of 
the system, or that it can immediately affect all others at 
the same time. If, then, the soul is really in space, it is 
entirely possible that the interaction of the soul and body 
should occur as it does, if the soul were in the third heaven 
or elsewhere. There is further no need of finding some 
one point in the brain with which alone the brain is in con- 
tact ; but just as physics teaches that an atom may stand in 
immediate relations to many others, so the soul may stand 
in immediate relations to many elements in the brain, yet 
without being in contact with any of them. Beyond the 
fact that physical and mental states may mutually deter- 
mine each other, the question as to the whereabouts of the 
soul in the body is idle and empty. If it should turn 
out that space itself is only a mode of appearance, and 
not a fact of reality, of course the question would vanish 
of itself. 

3. What has just been said applies only to the conscious 
activities of the soul. If we should assume, with some 
writers, that the soul organizes and maintains the body, 
there would be nothing to forbid the thought that in this 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 301 

organic activity the soul is in direct interaction with all 
parts of the nervous system, though aroused to conscious- 
ness only by changes in the brain. 

The use of the body by the soul is a question of far more 
significance. It is very common to speak of the body as 
the instrument of the soul ; and many figures of speech are 
employed which are rather more definite than the facts 
warrant. The soul is the harper, the body the harp ; the 
soul is the boatman, the body the boat ; the soul is the 
agent, the body the instrument. All these expressions 
imply a more external relation than really exists ; and 
they imply besides a knowledge which the soul does not 
really possess. How does the soul come to use the body ? 
and, How does it use the body ? are questions for special 
discussion. 

If we had been left to discover the use of the body for 
ourselves, we should never have succeeded. We know 
directly nothing of the various nerves and muscles, and 
their uses. We know that we can use the body ; but we 
know directly only the mental starting-point and the physi- 
cal resultant. Of the mediating mechanism we know 
directly nothing; and we should be no better off if we 
did, as we should be quite unable to make any use of 
our knowledge. The wisest anatomist would find himself 
utterly at a loss to control his body through its mechanism, 
if he had to manage the mechanism directly. Indeed, so 
complete is our ignorance of the motor mechanism that 
we should probably never have even suspected that the 
body is usable, if movements did not originate within it 
apart from any purpose or control of ours. 

Several classes of physical movements are to be distin- 
guished. First and lowest are the reflex movements. 
These may take place without our knowledge or volition ; 
and all we can do in the case is to control them to a greater 
or less extent. The system is able of itself to carry out 



302 PSYCHOLOGY. 

certain movements necessary to life ; and it seems also 
able, under the influence of internal and external stimuli, 
to produce movements which have the appearance of in- 
telligence and purpose. By the grouping of nerves and 
muscles, co-ordinated movements are produced in response 
to stimuli which are adapted to the development and con- 
servation of the organism. Such are the movements of 
young animals in sucking and swallowing. Such also are 
the movements of coughing, sneezing, maintaining an up- 
right position, avoiding a blow, recovering our balance, 
etc. If we extend reflex action to include all motor reac- 
tion against stimuli, without deciding whether the reacting 
agent is the nervous system or the soul, we may probably 
include all instinctive action under this head. 

In the reflex movements the stimulus may be external 
to the soul. Another set of physical effects have their 
ground in an inner state of the soul itself. This is the 
case with all expressions of emotion, such as crying or 
laughing, and the various physical expressions of joyful or 
sorrowful, tranquil or excited states of mind. These are 
often so vehement as to produce profound disturbance of 
the organic functions, and sometimes death itself. Here be- 
longs also the whole language of expression through physi- 
cal bearing and appearance. This order is no invention 
of ours ; nor do we see the least reason for it other than a 
teleological one. But the connection of soul and body is 
such that a given state of mind tends to echo itself at once 
in the body. The will can affect the connection only to 
the slightest extent. In itself it is no product of human 
volition or wisdom, but is rather a law of nature. 

More important in our control of the body is the class of 
movements which spring from our conceptions, especially 
from our conceptions of the movements themselves and the 
accompanying feelings. These also precede any distinct 
volition. There is a tendency in our conceptions of con- 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 303 

crete activity to discharge themselves upon the motor 
nerves. Thus in reading we detect a nascent excitation 
of the vocal mechanism; and many ignorant people can 
hardly read at all without reading aloud. Again, when we 
read a detailed description of a gymnastic performance 
with which we are acquainted, we find each step accompa- 
nied by a corresponding excitation of the motor apparatus. 
An uncultured person in giving an account of anything goes 
into the most extensive gesticulation corresponding to the 
matter recited. That these results are not due to volition 
is plain from the fact that they follow all the more surely 
the more we lose ourselves in the object. The effect is 
still more sure to follow when the conception is accom- 
panied by some representation of the appropriate feeling. 
This especially appears in our attempts to imitate some 
movement requiring skill, or to produce a given facial 
expression, etc. Here we know what we want to do with- 
out knowing how to do it ; and not until we have done it 
and distinguished the accompanying feelings are we able 
to produce it at will. There has been a tendency with 
many writers of physiological leanings to include all the 
cases mentioned under reflex action. This is done by 
extending reflex action to include all action which is not 
voluntary. The result is merely a verbal identification of 
different things, with much resulting confusion. Some go 
still further in the same direction, and include voluntary 
action under the same head ; and by the same device of 
extending reflex action to new meanings. 

We conclude, then, that we learn to control our bodies 
in this way. First, the reflex mechanism makes us ac- 
quainted with various movements and their accompanying 
feelings. Second, the connection between soul and body 
is such that our conceptions tend to realize themselves in 
corresponding action. Third, when these feelings and con- 
ceptions are produced in the mind, there is a tendency in 



304 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the organism to reproduce the corresponding movements. 
This order exists apart from and before volition, and con- 
stitutes the possibility of our control of the body. The 
•will modifies and employs this order, but does not originate 
it. The function of the will is double in the case, inhibi- 
tory and directive. In the first case we prevent movements 
from taking place which would result if the nerves were 
left to themselves. Such are the cases in which we submit 
to pain, and repress outcry and movement. Self-control is 
manifested largely in the form of repressive action. Our 
directive agency consists entirely in producing in ourselves 
the mental state with which by a mysterious order physical 
effects are connected. Further than this our power does 
not extend. The execution of our commands is taken up 
by the organism quite independently of any further in- 
fluence of the will. We sometimes fancy that we feel our 
own power flowing over upon the body, or that we feel the 
strain of our effort ; but all that we feel is certain muscular 
sensations which result from muscular tension. Their use 
is to guide us in regulating the intensity of our volition so 
as not to ruin the organism, but in themselves they are 
effects of our effort, and not the effort itself. Our will 
reaches immediately only our mental states, and an inde- 
pendent world-order provides for the rest. The distinction 
between willing and fulfilling depends on this fact to a 
great extent. 

In the previous paragraph we have seen that the physical 
mechanism plays an important part in the development of 
the mind. We have now to point out that the mind plays 
an equally important part in the development of the body. 
While the body initiates the mind, the mind perfects the 
body. Left to itself the soul never would learn to use the 
body, but the body left to itself would never come to any 
high development. The ease and accuracy with which 
physical movements follow our mental states admit of in- 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 305 

definite increase, as the body itself becomes more sensitive 
to commands. This fact is the basis of all active physical 
habit and of all acquired physical facility. In speaking, 
writing, piano-playing, etc., we see a host of complicated 
movements, coincident and successive, in which the mental 
representation scarcely exists in consciousness at all, so 
rapid is the movement. This state of physical sensibility 
is acquired only by practice ; but when reached, the work 
proceeds without anything but the general guidance of the 
will. There is a kind of wholesale willing which suffices 
for the process. Such a state is the stored-up result of 
past effort, and is due to the mind as well as to the body. 
The latter is simply receptive and retentive; the former 
originates and guides. This possibility of training the body 
to be the servant of the mind is of the utmost significance 
for our mental life. Otherwise Ave should be ever learning 
and never progressing, because of the perpetual need of 
doing our first works over again. 

Physical habits are of two kinds, habits which modify 
the sensibility alone, and habits which refer to action. Ex- 
amples of the former class are the acquired appetites, such 
as the craving for rum, tobacco, etc. The sensibility hav- 
ing been stimulated in any abnormal way soon comes to 
crave for renewed indulgence. Such habits are the indirect 
products of the will through indolence. What is needed 
for their production is no strenuous self-assertion and guid- 
ance, but only self-surrender. This is what has always 
made them seem unworthy and degrading. These habits 
result in inclination or desire for gratification. 

The active physical habits arise only through a positive 
action of the will. No one passively acquires any active 
habit ; but the self-determining mind must set itself a task, 
and laboriously dedicate itself to its realization. These 
habits do not result in any pronounced desire for gratifica- 
tion, such as attends the purely sensitive habits. 

20 



306 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The active physical habits also may be distinguished into 
two classes, those in which the mental element diminishes 
as the physical element increases, and those in which it 
does not. In walking, or riding, or writing, for example, 
the action is almost purely automatic when it has once be- 
come familiar ; and the mind is released from any but the 
most general control. In many cases of acquired skill, on 
the other hand, as in music or drawing, there is greatly 
increased facility, but the need of attention is as great as 
ever. The two classes, however, admit of no very sharp 
distinction except at their extremes. 

How much further the influence of the mind upon the 
body may go, is a question not easy to answer. Some re- 
gard even reflex action as originally due to the will ; so 
that the soul, instead of finding a reflex mechanism ready 
made as a condition of its later activity, really constructs 
that mechanism for itself. This conclusion is reached, 
however, by extending will to cover all the activities of 
the soul, the unconscious and automatic as well as the 
voluntary. 

This view expressed with more regard to the conventions 
of language would be as follows. The ground of form or 
organic structure must be sought somewhere, either in the 
soul, or in the elements composing the organism, or in a 
third something distinct from either. But the last view is 
operose, and multiplies existences needlessly. The second 
would lead to various grotesque assumptions concerning 
the nature of the elements, and finally to a mystical hylo- 
zoism. Declining these two views, we are shut up to the 
first. On this view, the soul is an agent whose activities 
are partly conscious and partly unconscious. As uncon- 
scious, it constructs the body, and maintains its functions ; 
as conscious, it appears as the mental self. The entire sub- 
ject is in the profoundest obscurity ; and any hypothesis we 
may frame must be based on speculative considerations. 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 307 

The cerebral localization of mental functions has been 
much discussed. This doctrine is intelligible only as a 
claim that the nervous activity which accompanies mental 
action is limited to particular parts of the brain, according 
to the kind of mental action. There is a certain antece- 
dent probability in such a view. The optic nerve condi- 
tions vision; the auditory nerve conditions hearing, etc. 
It seems, then, quite possible that certain forms of sensa- 
tion are limited to certain nervous tracts. The subject, 
however, remains in entire uncertainty. 

The phrenologists have made us familiar with brain 
charts and distributions of the mental powers ; but the 
purely fanciful character both of their physiology and of 
their psychology has long been recognized. Their utter- 
ances in general have been highly oracular, as a necessary 
consequence of the pecuniary relations of the "science"; 
and whenever they have been unambiguous they have been 
guesses, or groundless. 

In physiology the claim has often been made, and by 
many received, that distinct sensory and motor areas exist 
in the brain ; but the facts of vicarious action seem to show 
that this, so far as true, is a kind of acquired division of 
labor, rather than any absolute and original localization. 
For a long while the organ of language was regarded as 
certainly located ; but not even this fact can be regarded as 
certainly established. Various attempts have also been 
made to estimate the mental value of the brain by its bulk 
or weight, both absolute and relative ; but they have led to 
nothing. A manifest short-coming of these attempts was 
that they sought to measure only the quantity of brain, and 
ignored its quality. 

For the significance of our mental states, in both physi- 
cal health and disease, various works on pathology may be 
consulted. In general, the emotions have most influence 
upon our physical well-being. 



308 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The facts of the previous paragraphs contain some ac- 
count of the nervous waste which accompanies mental 
action of whatever sort. In much of our mental work 
there is a deal of physical labor directly involved, as in 
reading or speaking. The organism must be adjusted to 
the demands made upon it, and these are often great. 
Again, in much of our mental activity there is a continuous 
demand made upon some of the organs of sense. There is 
nothing strange in the nervous waste arising from such 
labor ; for the organism is distinctly brought into play. 
But apart from these cases there is a waste attendant upon 
thinking in general, without any reference to the senses 
whatever. The abstract reflections of the philosopher and 
the unpicturable thinking of the theologian involve nervous 
waste, although the objects dealt with are entirely super- 
sensible. Can we account for this in any way, or must we 
simply accept it as a fact ? 

Many have claimed, because of these facts, that our 
thoughts are but the transformation of the nervous energy 
consumed. This claim rests upon a total misunderstand- 
ing of the general doctrine of energy in physics. The com- 
mon fancy is that energy is an ethereal something, gliding 
from one thing to another, and assuming various forms in 
the passage. This is sheer mythology. Energy must al- 
ways be the energy of something, and cannot exist in the 
void without a subject. In the physical theory, the ele- 
ments are the subjects of the physical energies. But these 
are in such relations to one another that a given element, 
a, may arouse energy in another element, b, at the cost of 
its own. This is the transference of energy ; and, as in 
the case of the transference of motion, there is no proper 
transference, but a propagation. 

Again, in this propagation the new state produced may 
be qualitatively unlike the antecedent. The antecedent, 
electricity, may have for consequent heat, light, motor 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 309 

power, etc. This qualitative change is the transformation 
of energy, and consists simply in the qualitative unlike- 
ness of antecedent and consequent. 

If the antecedents and consequents be measured by some 
dynamic standard, they are found to be dynamically equiv- 
alent in spite of their qualitative differences. This is the 
conservation of energy. 

How far this is from the rhetorical whim of a Protean 
energy passing from thing to thing and from form to form 
is evident. Except in a figurative sense, there is no trans- 
ference and no transformation. If then the brain should 
expend energy in arousing the mind to activity, there would 
be no passage of physical energy into mental energy, but 
an expenditure of the former in inciting the mind to de- 
velop the latter. Whether such expenditure occurs cannot, 
of course, be known. It may be that thinking costs the 
brain something ; and it may be that each nervous ante- 
cedent is fully accounted for in its nervous consequent. A 
decision can be reached only on speculative grounds, and 
then can have only some slight measure of probability. 

The share of the brain in thinking may be conceived as 
follows. The interaction between mind and brain is mutual. 
A given nervous state tends to produce a specific sensation, 
and, conversely, the thought of that sensation tends to re- 
produce the corresponding physical state. This is seen in 
its most striking form in the sensations which arise from 
expectation or belief. In such cases the nervous system is 
so strongly affected that the sensation is really produced. 
So also, in the remembrance of an odor, a color, or a 
flavor, a nascent excitation of the appropriate nerves is 
perceptible. A familiar example is the so-called water- 
ing of the mouth at thought of some savory dish. In the 
representation of form, also, something of the kind is prob- 
able in the visual tract. Hallucinations, resulting in the 
vision of unrealities, reveal such a tendency. The same 



310 PSYCHOLOGY. 

fact in the case of language has already been referred to ; 
and, as all thinking largely proceeds by means of words, 
we see a measure of physical activity even in abstract 
thought. Certain forms of memory seem even conditioned 
by this physical participation; for example, it appears im- 
possible to recall a piece of music faster than we can hum 
it. Finally, thought is very often attended by emotion; 
and this too has its physical effects, which in general are 
more marked than any others. Thus we see that any men- 
tal state whatever implies nervous action in one form or 
another, and hence nervous waste. Indeed, this mutual 
sympathy of soul and body is not even strange, if we assume 
that the body itself is maintained only through the organ- 
izing activity of the soul. 

This subject is often confused by speaking of nervous 
exhaustion, instead of nervous waste. The exhaustion felt 
is our own, and whether it is due to the nervous waste or 
to our own effort is not clear. From continued action, the 
nervous system becomes less responsive to mental de- 
mands ; and it may be that this state of the nerves is the 
ground of our feeling of exhaustion. But it is equally pos- 
sible that pure mental functions are periodic, so that con- 
tinued effort and attention must be followed by rest and 
relaxation. And even allowing that the nerves are the 
ground of our exhaustion, they may be such only indirectly ; 
namely, by opposing increasing inertia to mental activity, 
and thereby demanding intenser effort on our part, and also 
by producing a great variety of uneasy feelings, which dis- 
tract our attention and thus hinder mental progress. In 
that case the exhaustion would still arise within the mind 
itself from its relation to its own activities. It may be, 
then, that the exhaustion arises entirely from the mental 
effort ; and that this would arise from the same amount of 
effort if the nerves showed no waste, or even if the body 
were entirely away. 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 311 

The significance of the body for the mental life admits 
of no precise definition. For the materialist, of course, the 
body is the only ground and source of the mental life. But 
even for the spiritualist, the body must have such signifi- 
cance as to suggest the question whether the mind is not 
really dependent on the body in the performance of its own 
functions, so that the disappearance of the body would 
mean the cessation of the mental functions. As a matter 
of fact, we do find mental disease, in its two great forms of 
idiocy and insanity, connected with some abnormal physical 
conditions. We find physical conditions also leading to a 
general weakening of memory and of the rational power, 
and often to utter unconsciousness. Here, then, is a great 
body of facts which suggest that the mental life cannot go 
on without the physical. Can any light be thrown on this 
question ? 

In dealing with the problem we must first look for some 
undoubted facts, in the hope that from them we may find 
our way to the understanding of the rest. Now, the first 
fact of this sort is, that the body is the instrument whereby 
the soul gets all its impressions of the outer world. It is 
further clear, from what we have seen in treating of percep- 
tion, that, to have an orderly mental life, these impressions 
must constitute an orderly series or system of series. If 
they are disorderly or incoherent, the soul has no manage- 
able material to work upon ; and the rational nature fails 
to develop. The result is idiocy, varying in depth with the 
physical imperfection from which it springs. 

Or we may suppose this disorder to begin after the ra- 
tional life has been developed into coherent forms, and sen- 
sations have become the signs of certain objects- If now 
the disorder result in producing sensations without the 
presence of their appropriate objects, there will be a series 
of hallucinations. If these sensations be of a strange and 
distressing nature, there will be a vision of correspondingly 



312 PSYCHOLOGY. 

frightful objects. The known laws of association working 
upon the sense data would not fail to present manifold un- 
canny or terrific objects to the mind. These objects, again, 
by the same laws and by the automatic connection of men- 
tal states with the motor system, would not fail to call forth 
corresponding action. The result would be delirium or 
insanity. In this case the mental action would be normal 
or rational under the assumed circumstances. The fault 
would be in the sense data, and to correct them would dis- 
charge the insanity. 

We know that a long-continued strain of mind often 
makes it impossible for us to banish our objects. They 
haunt us to weariness and because of weariness. Such a 
fact is explained by an overwrought state of the nerves, 
whereby they fail to return to their equilibrium of indiffer- 
ence. If, now, parts of the nervous tract should become 
permanently excited in this way, but to a still greater 
degree, we should have a tendency of certain forms of 
experience to take and maintain possession of conscious- 
ness ; and these, working together with the past experience 
of the individual, would produce " fixed ideas " of one kind 
or another. Here an unmanageable experience is thrust 
upon the mind from without, the limits of self-control are 
transcended, and insanity of a certain type sets in. 

A certain amount of fixity in the elements of experience 
is necessary to rationality. Without it there can be no 
discrimination, comparison, or judgment. Illustration is 
found in the rapid passage of objects across the field of 
vision. When the rapidity is too great, the mind fails to 
identify or retain anything. The same thing is seen in the 
wild flight of ideas in delirium. Nothing is fixed or stable 
enough to allow the mind to grasp its objects in rational 
comprehension. If, now, the nervous system should ac- 
quire abnormal mobility of its parts, so that the physical 
changes which are attended by mental states should sue- 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 313 

ceed one another with great rapidity, something of the 
same kind must happen. Rational reflection would be 
impeded, if not impossible ; and the tendency would be 
toward obliteration of rationality altogether. 

Mental work is greatly aided by physical helps in many 
ways. Compare, for example, the labor of solving a geo- 
metrical problem, or of multiplying a long list of figures, 
in the mind, with that of doing the same work when the 
diagrams are drawn or the figures written down. The 
physical symbol helps the mind to keep the problem stead- 
ily before it, and leaves it free for purely rational effort. 
Such facts prove that there are nervous states which can 
greatly assist the mind in some of its operations. But the 
facts of the two preceding paragraphs make it very proba- 
ble that something of the same .kind exists in all thinking, 
because of the connection of thought with language and 
with physical images. If this be so, then any disturbance 
of the brain whereby it should affect the mind only in a 
coarse and gross manner, or whereby it should become less 
sensitive to mental states, would impede rational activity 
as much as it would embarrass a mathematician to take his 
pencil and paper away from him. More than this, it would 
tend to repress rational activity ; for so long as the mind 
is subject to such an order of interaction with the body, a 
disturbance in either member must reflect itself in the 
other. If, in addition, this state of the nerves should be 
the ground of various vague and disturbing states of con- 
sciousness, which should haunt the mind and distract atten- 
tion, the higher forms of mental action must be profoundly 
disturbed. We have constant illustration of such disturb- 
ance in the inability to think, to fix the attention, and to 
store up facts for recollection, which attends the weariness 
of every day and ends in unconsciousness every night. 

The integrity of mental action is very much affected by 
our general state of physical feeling. Great changes in 



314 PSYCHOLOGY. 

this feeling, so that we are haunted or stormed upon by 
queer and uninterpre table sensations, are sure to result in 
mental hallucination, unless there is a well-knit scientific 
habit of thought which prevents our giving way to the illu- 
sions which would otherwise arise. It is out of such queer 
and abnormal feelings that the delusions of the hypochon- 
driac, etc. arise. 

Again, the interaction of soul and body extends, in all 
probability, far beyond consciousness. If we allow the 
soul any formative influence upon the body, we admit an 
organic interaction which is not conscious. Yet the inter- 
action upon which consciousness depends can hardly be a 
separate and unrelated one, but must rather be a particu- 
lar phase of the other. In that case an abnormal state of 
the organism must form an impediment to the normal ac- 
tivity of the soul in its organic manifestation ; and because 
of the unity of the soul, such disturbance of its activity in 
one realm could hardly fail to have significance for its total 
activity. 

These considerations show that, while the soul is con- 
nected with the body, the condition of the body must have 
the profoundest significance for the mental life. We be- 
lieve, also, that they explain in principle all the mental 
disturbances and aberrations which arise from physical 
conditions. We say "in principle," because there is no 
theory which enables us to explain each fact in detail. 
The most thorough-going materialism is as unable to ex- 
plain the detailed facts of our mental dependence on physi- 
cal conditions — for example, peculiar loss of memory — as 
any other theory. But the same inability to follow our 
principles into details meets us everywhere, even in the 
laws of mechanics. We may be perfectly sure that the 
simple laws of force and motion determine every move- 
ment in the physical universe ; and yet we cannot trace 
them except in the simplest instances. 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 315 

We return now to the question with which we started. 
Can the mental life go on apart from the body ? Taken by 
themselves, the facts admit of a threefold interpretation. 
"We may regard the body (1.) as producing mental func- 
tions, (2.) as necessary to mental functions, and (3.) as 
interfering with and repressing mental functions which it 
does not produce, and to which it is not necessary. The 
first interpretation is excluded by the untenability of ma- 
terialism. Between the other two, we must observe that 
the facts are all negative. They do not show us the body 
as necessary to the performance of mental functions, but 
as interfering with mental functions. We have also seen 
that the existing connection between physical and mental 
states is purely a factual one. Neither is seen to imply the 
other ; and, so far as we can see, they could exist equally 
well apart. When once a mental life has begun, and a 
store of ideas has been accumulated, it seems quite possible 
that a self-enclosed thought life might continue thereafter 
in entire independence of any organism. No necessity for 
an organism appears, except for communication with the 
outer world. Without it, the soul would be restricted to 
itself, having no experience of the world beyond, and no 
power to act upon or in that world. In fact, all that is 
needed here is a system of interaction with externality, 
whereby the soul may receive impulses from without, and 
may produce effects beyond itself. On the idealistic theory, 
that is all that even the present organism amounts to. 

The abstract possibility of our existing apart from the 
body admits of no dispute ; but this is far enough from 
proving that we shall so exist. Yet the fact that the soul 
cannot be identified with the body shows that the destruc- 
tion of the body contains no assignable ground for the de- 
struction of the soul. The indestructibility of substance, 
also, upon which physics is based, would suggest that every 
real thins must be assumed to continue in existence until 



316 PSYCHOLOGY. 

its annihilation has been proved. If, then, this subject is 
to be argued upon the basis of our customary ideas, the 
burden of proof would lie altogether upon the believer in 
annihilation ; for the soul is real, and must be assumed to 
exist until its destruction has been shown. Of course, such 
a showing is impossible ; and hence the presumption must 
remain in favor of continued existence. 

To this it is urged in objection, that such a claim would 
imply the continued existence of brute souls ; and that this 
would be absurd. In fact, the absurdity lies altogether in 
the unfamiliarity of the notion. That many forms of ani- 
mal life should exist at all is as great an absurdity as 
could well be conceived. That they should continue to 
exist would be no greater one. The question, Of what use 
would they be hereafter ? is offset by the equally unanswer- 
able one, Of what use are they here ? We need not reflect 
long to see that our artificial and anthropomorphic notions 
of the fit and the unfit cannot well be applied to cosmic 
problems. 

In fact, however, none of our customary ideas will help 
us in this matter. Metaphysics convinces us that the entire 
system of finite things has its ground of existence, not in 
itself, but in one Infinite Being, who is the fundamental 
reality in all existence. No finite thing, then, has any in- 
alienable right to exist by virtue of its title of substance, 
or from any other metaphysical ground whatever. Every 
finite thing, whether material or spiritual, begins to exist 
because the nature or plan of the Infinite calls for it. If 
that nature or that plan should no longer demand its exist- 
ence, then that thing would cease to be. We can only lay 
down, then, this formal principle : Those things that have 
perennial significance for the universe will abide; those 
which have only temporary significance will pass away. 
But this principle admits of no specific conclusions on our 
part. We cannot tell what the plan of the Infinite may 



INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY. 317 

include and what it may exclude. It already includes so 
much that we should have rejected, that we can hardly 
help concluding that the data of the problem lie beyond our 
grasp. The only thing to which we can attribute an abso- 
lute worth is moral goodness, or the moral personality ; 
but this is a consideration drawn from the moral nature, 
and not from metaphysical speculation. In short, if the 
moral nature demands continued existence, or if any word 
of revelation affirms it, there is no fact or argument against 
it. On the other hand, apart from the moral nature and 
revelation, pure speculation must occupy a somewhat agnos- 
tic attitude upon this question. 

It will be seen that viewing this question from the stand- 
point of values, instead of metaphysics, removes the embar- 
rassments involved in the immortality of brutes. Whoever 
urges their immortality must show some absolute value in 
their existence which demands it. The simple fact that all 
have souls would by no means imply an essential likeness 
of nature. Souls are souls, no doubt ; and so are metals 
metals. And just as belonging to the one class of metals 
does not exclude incommensurable differences among the 
members of the class, so belonging to the general class of 
souls would not exclude classes of souls which should be 
on different planes and have impassable gulfs between 
them. As the coefficient of elasticity is different with 
different substances according to their specific nature, so 
the coefficient of mentality may have different values for 
different souls. 

As a matter of fact, this coefficient varies greatly even 
within the limits of the human species. There are many 
differences of temperament, talent, taste, and disposition, 
which are not due to training, but belong to the personal 
constitution. In addition to being a specimen of humanity, 
each one has his personal equation, whereby he is rendered 
an irreducible individuality. Of the foundation of these 



318 PSYCHOLOGY. 

differences nothing is known. Differences of temperament 
are commonly referred to some physical ground ; but what 
it is is a matter of surmise. The attempt to refer all men- 
tal differences to a physical source, apart from the fact 
that nothing is known of that source, rests upon the highly 
improbable fancy that all souls are strictly alike. Why 
the spiritual world should be one dead uniformity or mo- 
notony, is not entirely apparent. In truth, we are misled 
in such attempts by a mistaken ideal of explanation ; and 
as a result, we go through the forms, or make the motions, 
of explanation, and forget to inquire whether we are really 
getting ahead. 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 319 



CHAPTER V. 

SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 

If we take the conscious activities of our normal wak- 
ing moments as a standard of reference, experience shows 
many departures therefrom. The most familiar of these 
is normal sleep. 

The causes of sleep are not fully understood. At first 
sight, physical exhaustion seems to be the evident cause ; 
but this is not the only factor ; for there can be great wea- 
riness without sleep, and sleep can be produced without 
weariness. Being too tired to sleep is a familiar experi- 
ence ; and, on the other hand, sleep is often produced by an 
easy physical position, a monotony of idea, or simple men- 
tal emptiness. A case is recorded of a lad whose senses 
were limited to a single eye and ear, and who could be put 
to sleep simply by closing the eye and stopping the ear. 
A variety of gentle manipulations, also, such as strok- 
ing, combing the hair, and the like, have a marked sopo- 
rific effect. The effect of ennui is well known. In various 
forms of mesmeric experiments, also, the same fact is seen. 
Certain rhythmic movements of the body, as rocking or 
swinging, are also soporific. Finally, the action of anaes- 
thetics in producing sleep is noteworthy. None of these 
cases can be brought under the head of exhaustion ; and 
except in the \? t case none of them can be shown to 
produce any chemical products to which sleep might be re- 
ferred. Further, the suddenness with which in many cases 
sleep may follow upon the most complete mental activity 
forbids any thought of a gradual exhaustion of nervous 
force. Many persons are at their best at night. In short, 



320 PSYCHOLOGY. 

the immediate cause of sleep is not known. If we refer it 
to a periodicity of either physical or mental functions, we 
merely construct a phrase ; and if we insist that it has 
physical grounds, we cannot tell what they are, nor how 
they are connected with the effect. 

If we measure the depth of sleep by the amount of 
stimulus needed to awaken the sleeper, we may say that 
this depth is a varying quantity. In general, it is deepest 
directly after going to sleep. The amplitude of the sleep- 
curve reaches a maximum from which it soon declines, and 
remains nearly constant until waking. The depth varies 
greatly with different persons, some being light sleepers 
and others sound sleepers. It also varies with the same 
person according to his habit or state of mind. When 
we have something on our mind, or when we are to rise 
at an unusually early hour, sleep is often fitful and dis- 
turbed. 

The depth of sleep is variable in another respect, in that 
stimuli of the sensory nerves may work upon the mind and 
produce their appropriate sensations. The reaction of the 
mind upon these may take the form of simple association 
of the impressions, or of a rational interpretation of them. 
Questions may be answered, and even various activities 
originated in connection with them, yet without leaving 
any abiding impression upon the memory of the sleeper. 

Out of this fact comes the explanation of the fantastic 
character of dreams. The power which is pre-eminently 
in abeyance in sleep is that of rational attention and self- 
control, upon which the higher forms of consciousness 
depend. The result is that any disturbing sensation that 
may arise has the mind to itself. It is not confronted by 
the realities of visual experience ; it is not compared with 
the system of waking experience ; it docs not pass under 
the scrutiny of the judgment; and hence its nonsense or 
absurdity remains unperccived. The laws of association 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 321 

are left free to work it over by any hap-liazard connection 
of experience, or to give it any whimsical form whatever. 
In our waking moments, when we allow the laws of asso- 
ciation similar play, we have similar disconnected and wild 
vagaries ; and if we took them for real as we do in dreams, 
we should have essentially the dreaming state. In the lat- 
ter, our objects are seldom compared with reality or with 
past experience ; and all measures of time, of rationality, 
and of possibility are lacking. Hence we are rarely sur- 
prised at anything in dreams, but view the most extraordi- 
nary event as a matter of course. This failure to estimate 
the true significance of action and experience in dreams 
often results in the greatest emotional indifference to the 
most shocking deeds. But for this quiescence of the judg- 
ment, sleep might become a perpetual nightmare. 

The dream consciousness is often originated by actual 
sensations, which are then worked over into some grotesque 
but correspondent form. These sensations may be pe- 
ripherally or centrally initiated. Many experiments have 
been made to test the effect of special sensations in ini- 
tiating or determining dreams, and the results are some- 
times striking. Actual sensations, when not the source of 
the dream consciousness, often modify it. Along with the 
dream goes a vague consciousness of the body and its 
actual condition, and this becomes a factor of the dream 
itself. This is probably the reason why we sometimes 
dream of being in undress in public. 

The peculiar sense of failure in most dreams which re- 
late to physical activities seems due to the fact that the 
appropriate senses fail to be deceived. Thus, it is pecu- 
liarly difficult for many to persuade a gun to go off in a 
dream. This apparently results from the unwillingness of 
the ear to lend itself to the deception ; and the noise being 
lacking, there is a sense of failure which explains itself as 
a missing fire on the part of the gun. 

21 



322 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Dream activity may sometimes rise to the height of sus- 
tained rational effort, but very rarely. As a rule, we do 
little that is worth while in dreams. Instances are re- 
ported of a high order of mental action and insight in the 
dreaming state ; and most persons have had experience of 
something of the kind. This experience, however, is often 
illusory. If we succeed in catching or recalling the pro- 
found or witty saying, we generally find it shallow or flat 
enough. The wit and insight turn out to be as illusory as 
dreams in general. 

The materials of dreams are all drawn from waking ex- 
perience. There is no revelation of strange powers or 
strange forms of mental action. The prophetic character 
of dreams finds no support in experience, except very rarely 
in cases of disease ; and here the dream is probably due to 
the disease which has already, though secretly, begun. At 
the same time, dreams seldom reproduce actual experience, 
and never without modification. The things we deal with 
during the day by no means always furnish the material of 
our dreams. Indeed, it is rather the rule that the dream 
withdraws us into a fictitious world, so that it is oftener 
creative than reproductive. 

No single explanation of dreams is possible, as dreams 
do not fall into a single class. Dreams are often gro- 
tesque and incoherent; but sometimes they are rational 
and coherent. Sometimes the most alarming situations 
cause no fear, and sometimes they fill us with terror. 
Sometimes there is the utmost emotional and ethical indif- 
ference to the most distressing circumstances; and some- 
times there is extreme sorrow or remorse. The most 
prominent form of mental activity in dreams is that of as- 
sociation apart from any rational control ; and this has led 
to the claim that in dreams the will is asleep. But this 
is by no means always the case. While the associative 
activity is in general the leading one, the other forms 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 323 

of mental action, as will, rational thought, and creative 
imagination also appear to a greater or less extent. 

The most marked distinction between waking fancies 
and dreams is the greater vividness and objectivity of the 
latter. In dreams we appear, not to fancy, but to perceive. 
In explanation, it is said that our sensations are always 
projected outward in our waking moments, and that dreams 
do but follow the same law. This would suppose, however, 
either that dream objects are always founded on sensations, 
or that the mind produces the sensations appropriate to 
its conceptions and thus reaches a ground of objectivity. 
Again, it is said that the reason for the greater objectivity 
of objects in dreams over waking fancies is due to the fact 
that the latter are constantly compared with the real world 
of things, and are thus made to appear in their subjective 
nature. In dreams our fancies are not thus compared, and 
hence assume to be real objects. This explanation, how- 
ever, cannot get on without assuming that the mind tends 
to project its objects under the forms of thought. 

Sometimes a dream may be acted out. This is the case 
in somnambulism. Sometimes the dream adapts itself to 
the external situation; and sometimes it assimilates objects 
to itself. Sleep-walking illustrates the former ; the fon- 
dling of inanimate objects, say the pillow, illustrates the 
latter. Fortunately, sleep is generally accompanied by an 
inhibition of motor activity : otherwise every dream in- 
volving the representation of bodily movement would drive 
the dreamer out of bed. 

The question is often raised whether the mind is ever 
completely inactive even in sleep. This involves the rela- 
tion of dreams to sleep. Some hold that dreams indicate 
imperfect sleep, and others claim that they are the general 
form of mental activity during sleep. Apparently sleep 
is often dreamless ; but the claim is made that this is due 
to a failure to remember our dreams. This is not so vio- 



324 PSYCHOLOGY. 

lent a supposition as appears ; for the leading character- 
istic of dreams, as disconnected and irrational, makes them 
especially difficult to remember. The bulk of the day's 
experience is forgotten before night ; it would not, then, 
be strange if the bulk of the night's experience should 
vanish before day. Hamilton sought to test the matter by 
having himself frequently awakened. He claimed that he 
always found himself dreaming. It is a common experi- 
ence to find on waking that we have been busy with some- 
thing ; though this quickly escapes us, unless we grasp it 
at once. To this it is replied, that these dreams are only 
the transition from sleeping to waking, the first stirrings 
of reviving intelligence. On the other hand, we often find 
persons giving all the signs of dreaming in their sleep, 
yet without any memory of their dream on waking. The 
somnambulist seldom, if ever, recalls his dream. Plainly 
memory is no test of past mental activity; for memory 
does not retain the details of our waking life from one 
hour to another, and often not from one minute to another. 
The continuity of mental action is certainly not disproved ; 
and a study of the facts serves to lessen its apriori incredi- 
bility. Of course, it admits of no strict proof. In any case, 
the mind may retain a certain power of discrimination, 
even in sleep. A customary sensation is ignored ; but an 
unusual one may lead to a speedy waking. The smell of 
fire, the stopping of the train, the movement of the invalid, 
any suspicious noise or circumstance, will often arouse us, 
while a familiar or insignificant sensation has no effect. 

If we take the rational activity of our self-conscious 
waking moments as a standard, the dream activity must 
appear as imperfect and abnormal. On this account some 
writers have affirmed a parallelism between dreams and in- 
sanity amounting almost to an identification. This amounts 
to no more than saying that a waking person whose men- 
tal activity remained as grotesque and incoherent as most 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 325 

dreams would not be regarded as sane. It would hardly 
tend to clearness, however, to say that every sleeping person 
is insane. 

Closely allied to sleep is the hypnotic or mesmeric con- 
dition. We have seen that in dreams the senses are not en- 
tirely inactive, and that we may to some extent direct the 
dreamer's thought and action by external suggestions. The 
marked feature of the hypnotic state, psychologically con- 
sidered, is that the patient is especially sensitive to such 
suggestions. They are taken up with the same complete 
lack of criticism with which we take up any fancy which 
occurs in dreams. The result is the same failure to see 
the absurdity of the situation which is so characteristic of 
dreams. The reflective and critical activity is in abeyance, 
and the laws of association and the operator are free to 
sport with us. The state is further accompanied at times 
by an extraordinary insensibility to pain. 

This state is produced in various ways. Passes of the 
hand before the eyes, stroking the face, staring at bright 
objects, and in particular the expectation of the result, all 
produce this condition. The last element is so effective 
that Dr. Carpenter has founded his explanation of the facts 
on the influence of expectation. That this does not meet 
all cases is plain from the fact that the hypnotic condition 
can be produced in animals, such as rabbits and pigeons ; 
and it has been suggested that the so-called " playing 
dead " of animals, as the opossum, is hypnotism produced 
by fear. 

The immediate causes of hypnotism, like those of sleep, 
are not known. There is, however, universal agreement 
among investigators that the notion of an animal mag- 
netism, or of a direct influence of the will of the operator, 
is sheer mistake when not fraud. The facts themselves 
are very curious ; but the pecuniary exigencies of a pub- 
lic and popular exhibition are such that one is justified 



326 PSYCHOLOGY. 

in not accepting all that is said, or that appears at such 
shows, without several grains of salt. In general, there is a 
great difference in persons as to their sensibility to the so- 
called influence. For the best results an unstable nervous 
system and a loosely knit intellect are indispensable. In all 
cases the effect upon the nervous system is mischievous. 

Insanity remains to be considered. If by sanity we un- 
derstand the ideal working of all our faculties, we must 
say that it nowhere exists. The narrowness of prejudice, 
the mulishness of obstinacy, indifference to worthy things, 
and overwhelming interest in trifles, are customary, but 
abnormal, mental states. The term insanity, however, is 
generally reserved for cases where there is some marked 
delusion in perception, or some decided reversal of the 
ordinary estimates of the common relations of daily life. 
We consider only its mental aspect. 

From the psychological side, the most prominent fea- 
tures of insanity are the existence of various hallucinations 
and sense illusions, profound changes in feeling and dis- 
position, and the growing concentration of ideas within 
an ever narrowing circle, at the centre of which is the 
fixed idea. It is, however, pure superstition to fancy that 
any new and strange mental powers are revealed, or that 
any diabolical agency is at work. All the factors at work 
in the insane mind are found in normal mental action. 
The sweet bells are jangled out of tune ; but it is the 
same set of bells. 

If from any cause the sensory nerves become abnormally 
sensitive, and tend to produce queer sensations, we have 
all the conditions for the delusions of the hypochondriac, 
etc. An abnormal physical state is produced ; and this 
is interpreted by the person in accordance with various 
notions, customary conceptions, or current superstitions. 
If the visual tract is disturbed, then visions occur. If 
there is not sufficient strength of mind and range of knowl- 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 327 

edge to recognize these in their illusory character, they 
furnish the occasion for boundless correspondent changes 
in the course of thought and action. When the physical 
disturbance is such as to hinder the higher forms of mental 
activity, insanity soon passes into imbecility. 

Profound disturbances of feeling also arise, and modify 
the mental life ; indeed, the claim is made that all insanity 
begins in disturbance of feeling. Such feeling demands 
interpretation, and the mind adjusts itself and its thoughts 
to it. The specific notions arising depend upon the indi- 
vidual experience. The person may think himself perse- 
cuted or forsaken, saved or lost. The idea once suggested 
will gather the whole mind to itself, and even force itself 
upon external experience. The patient is surrounded by 
angels or demons, friends or enemies, all alike imaginary. 
The end of this state is to narrow consciousness down to a 
fixed idea, in which all rationality is slowly extinguished. 
The self-control which is necessary to a rational life is 
lost ; and all the mentality that is left is simply the chaotic 
movement of the associative mechanism, and the automatic 
movements resulting therefrom. In short, from such a 
connection of soul and body as has been described in the 
previous chapter, from the known action of the laws of 
association when freed from rational control, and from the 
tendency of the mind to give a rational form to all its ex- 
periences, the facts of insanity are easily explained in prin- 
ciple as outcomes of familiar laws. 

The ground of insanity is always assumed to be physical. 
While we have no wish to dispute this, it can hardly be 
said to be made out. In many cases some physical ground 
can be shown ; but in many others nothing can be discov- 
ered which has not been found in the brains of sane per- 
sons. Of course, we may say there may be " lesions " 
below vision ; but while their non-appearance does not cer- 
tainly disprove their reality, it can hardly be said to prove 



328 PSYCHOLOGY. 

it. Still, there is endless room for speaking of disturbances 
of function, lowering of tone, variation of excitability, etc. ; 
and withal, all use of medicine, it is said, must rest on the 
assumption that the disease is physical, and only seconda- 
rily mental. The original cause of insanity is indeed very 
often mental, — love, business, bereavement, religion, etc. ; 
but it is assumed in such cases that insanity does not be- 
come established until the mental strain has wrought some 
abnormal change in the brain. Apart from this, the mind 
is supposed to have sufficient elasticity to recover its men- 
tal state. Still, it does not appear why an overmastering 
association, amounting to a fixed idea, might not be formed 
in the mind itself ; and just as little does it appear why 
one might not "minister to a mind diseased " through the 
body, so long as the latter has influence upon the former. 
In any case, mental treatment is quite as important as 
physical, both for prevention and for cure. 

The claim is often made that extraordinary powers and 
processes sometimes manifest themselves. Clairvoyance, 
direct relations with persons otherwise than through the 
senses, mind-reading, various spiritualistic performances, 
are illustrations. The apriori possibility of such things 
cannot be denied ; but before any faith is put in them the 
alleged facts should be subjected to the most rigid scrutiny. 
Apparitions in general admit of easy pathological expla- 
nation. In the other matters the amount of demonstrated 
fraud is so great as to cast the strongest suspicion over the 
whole. All the circumstances, too, are suspicious, such as 
the need of working in the dark, or of being out of sight, 
etc. Of course, we can say that the spirits cannot write 
upon a slate in plain sight ; but most minds will find the 
hypothesis of knavery quite as adequate to the facts, and 
more in line with the continuity of experience. In general, 
there is a very strong presumption against any alleged fact 
which stands apart from the established order of life. 



SLEEP AND ABNORMAL MENTAL PHENOMENA. 329 

Telepathy, too, cannot be proved impossible, and in itself 
it would not be any more mysterious than the common facts 
of perception ; but, for the reason just mentioned, the ut- 
most care must be exercised in determining the facts before 
placing any faith in them ; and then a certain lukewarm- 
ness is highly to be recommended. One would need to 
know the character and mental habit of the person report- 
ing such an experience, and also the nature of the appari- 
tion or impression, and whether the later experience had 
not given the impression a vividness and definiteness in 
memory which it did not originally have. Consideration of 
these and similar points will generally reduce the marvel to 
very slight dimensions. Indeed, we have never known a 
single case of these extraordinary powers, processes, and 
events which on examination did not resolve itself either 
into vulgar trickery or into a thoughtless magnifying of 
the commonplace into the marvellous. 



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